A while back, it was discovered that saving specific URLs as bookmarks on your home screen can provide shortcuts to specific aspects of the iOS settings. For example, you could have a bookmark that would toggle airplane mode on or off with a tap instead of launching the settings app. It’s useful, but nothing to do backflips over. Well, until you tell people they can’t do that anymore.
As iSpazio states, these bookmarks aren’t useable in the developer beta of iOS 5.1. I have not attempted this, nor would I discuss it if I had. Provided that this is true, it might not mean anything anyway. Companies release betas specifically to help squash bugs and allow developers to make their apps work with the update. Until we get official word from Apple or 5.1 is released without the ability to shortcut, let’s not get worked up.
As much as Apple is known for “our way or the highway” dealings, they aren’t stupid. For example, the hardware switch on the iPad that changed from orientation lock to mute spawned much hate mail, so Apple allowed users to toggle to their preference. If Apple does remove this capability without a good reason, I’d imagine enough of a ruckus just might cause them to reconsider. For now, let’s just take a chill pill.