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This seems to be really a tough one, also for me. Using an iPhone 13 mini. I really like eSIM, it has made my international travel so much easier. At the same time, one of my travel/ foreign SIM cards remains a physical one. Working to change that (can only be done in that country) but I also appreciate the convenience and flexibility of the slot.
 
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I still use a physical sim card and change the phone my card is used in regularly which is hard/impossible to do with an eSim. I have a "disposable" phone for when I do adventurous activities and my expensive phone for day to day use. If I only have an eSim I would be forever reactivating the esim!

Let us have a choice!
While I understand that, I would like to debunk this quickly that from iOS 17, you can easily transfer eSIMS from iPhone to iPhone.

No QR codes needed, no carrier intervention.

Go and add an eSIM and you have an option to transfer an eSIM from another iPhone nearby.
 
Clarifying question on the Canadian one. Does it have the capability to have:
A) two eSIMs active simultaneously when not using the physical slot.
Or
B) can only use the eSIM and physical sim at the same time?

Reason I ask is 99% of the time I’d want to use two eSIMs in dual sim capacity (DSDS). However on a very rare occasion if I wanted to pop in a physical sim I’d want to be able to use it with one of the eSIMs active

Update. Looks like it is option a) which is good. I guess downside is you lose mmWave capability which may be worth the trade off given how tiny the mmWave footprint is.
You can use two esims or an esim and a physical one at the same time
 
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Calm down there Karl Marx.... there are literally hundreds of other phones you could choose from. Nobody is forcing you to buy the phone. If you don't like the choices Tim Apple makes, vote with your wallet.

We don't need the state regulating every minute detail of our lives. Given that there are so many phones out there with physical sim slots... I just don't see a valid argument for the kind of regulation you are calling for.

I'd rather have old school replaceable batteries regulated back into existence if we go down that rabbit hole.
If you could push the sad reality of it through that thick cranium, then you’d know to be the very victim of the forced idea for you to have to get, or believe to want it by a that third party you also falsely call it KM without having a slightest idea what it is. Of course you don’t see deregulating with a regulation. It’s called indoctrination.
 
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The only reason I'm hesitant to use eSIM is in case my phone breaks. So if quickly need to swap to another old phone, how easily can I switch? And well, since my phone has both physical SIM and eSIM, there isn't really a benefit of using eSIM at all.
Ahh yea the good old days of my phone breaking and swapping the sim into my cellular iPad to use data. Looks like I’ll be keeping my iPhone 13 for years to come.
 
show some courage apple.
For markets without a sim tray, use that slot for a microsd card.

nah who am i kidding, it's not courage holding them back from doing that.
 
Why would they let us upgrade storage when they’re happy to sell us more at a premium? :p
 
I’m a stockholder and I think it makes way more sense to include the sim tray in all iPhones worldwide, if only to have a single version of each model for manufacturing efficiency. The only reason I can think of for the status quo is some sort of deal with the big legacy carriers in the US whose strategy is to lock their users in and make it as difficult as possible to switch or use other carriers. This approach is bad for the consumer and short sighted of AAPL to support.
 
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I wonder has Apple thought about the ability to store up to 16 eSIM "images" on a single iPhone, with two active. It would certainly make it useful if you travel around eastern Asia or in Europe and have to set up a local number on a temporary basis.
 
It's not about cost, but control. The SIM tray costs nothing. They added a new button this year, so it's not about water resistance either.

Apple wants control of the stack, including your cellular provider. With eSIM, they can determine if a particular carrier makes the cut. And as gatekeeper, Apple can demand a 30% cut of the carrier revenue too, just like the Apple Store.

But outside the U.S., Apple doesn't dominate the carriers. This is a great thing.
Is that where the terms I’ve heard used in the past “ Apple bundle “ or something come into play when it comes to USA carriers and MVNO?
 
Calm down there Karl Marx.... there are literally hundreds of other phones you could choose from. Nobody is forcing you to buy the phone. If you don't like the choices Tim Apple makes, vote with your wallet.

We don't need the state regulating every minute detail of our lives. Given that there are so many phones out there with physical sim slots... I just don't see a valid argument for the kind of regulation you are calling for.

I'd rather have old school replaceable batteries regulated back into existence if we go down that rabbit hole.
And here lays the problem. The state here is in peoples lives and business but not those that they receive lobbying money from. Not those that they need to be keeping a tab on. Hence why consumer laws are sub standard compared to other developed western nations and corporations especially USA ones can do what they please with little to no accountability.
 
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Late to this party but I have no idea why Apple removed the SIM slot when there appears to be no need to do so.

I travel to countries with no eSIM capability or if they do, it takes too long to activate. I need to land and have an activated phone. eSIM does not cut it.

However the thing that really gets me is that the iPhone has the space to have a SIM card carrier but they do not provide it in the US, but why? This smacks of some deal with the carriers that want to prevent people swapping phones easily for some reason. I hate being forced into something that is completely unnecessary like the regional coding on movies that prevented you taking a movie and playing it in another country. This was not technical issue it was money and political and I am beginning to suspect the same about SIM trays in the US. Why, I haven't a clue.
 
Apple should also mention that the eSIM is carrier locked in the US if you haven't paid off your phone yet, so good luck using it outside of the US.

Getting AT&T to unlock my phone was such a hassle I just paid off the installment.
Crazy it’s still legal to “carrier lock” a phone. In Denmark carrier lock hasn’t been a thing for many years. No matter what carrier or store you buy a phone it will never come locked to a specific carrier.
 
I finally went eSIM with my iPhone 13. I‘m using Tello (MNVO). It was actually really easy to setup, although I needed to log into their website to get my QR Code. I scanned the QRC and it downloaded the eSIM.
 
I'm asking this because I was just looking on the Apple Philippines site and not one spot on the tech specs says anything about esim or any type of slot for a Psim.
 
I'm asking this because I was just looking on the Apple Philippines site and not one spot on the tech specs says anything about esim or any type of slot for a Psim.
Here's what it says on the comparison page for a 14. I think the rest are there too.
 

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Crazy it’s still legal to “carrier lock” a phone. In Denmark carrier lock hasn’t been a thing for many years. No matter what carrier or store you buy a phone it will never come locked to a specific carrier.

Agreed - it's completely nuts

I can't speak to other countries, but in the USA we customers are but mere pawns on the chessboard of corporate profits and shareholder returns
 
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Agreed - it's completely nuts

I can't speak to other countries, but in the USA we customers are but mere pawns on the chessboard of corporate profits and shareholder returns.
Yep. That's pretty much it.

Also, as with other threads about AT&T carrier deals and so forth it seems nobody buys their phone, they only finance them which comes with all sorts of strings and hoops including locks on using it abroad. I got tired of it, and bought an older phone that I'm keeping until it's dead. I can do what I want with it or change carriers if I get really burnt.

It went from subsidies to these new "deals" to buy people out of their phone payments so they can switch carriers.
Now that the USA is down to 3 main carriers they had to do something to get new people to get that stock price up as there are a finite number of customers.
 
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In a similar theme, I just came across this article. It's another way the carriers are out to screw customers.

This article should probably be a whole new thread.

T-Mobile, AT&T oppose unlocking rule, claim locked phones are good for users​

 
In a similar theme, I just came across this article. It's another way the carriers are out to screw customers.

This article should probably be a whole new thread.

T-Mobile, AT&T oppose unlocking rule, claim locked phones are good for users​


I would love for them to put forth one single “user” who thinks the phone being locked is some benefit to them
 
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