Apple Allegedly Preparing for iPhones Without SIM Card Slot by September 2022 [Updated]

[SFjohn]

Hahaha! Pretty sure this will save Apple lots of money. They don't have to tell the carriers to make the SIM cards along with the Sim tool. Slowly it is all getting eliminated. Guess what, Apple will say it took “COURAGE” to make that happen. 🤦🏻‍♀️

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All these tools are going to become useless over for an almighty iPhone

I know for a fact some genius will find a way to create a SIM card slot in the 2022 iPhones. Rest assured it will cost $100,000.00.

You left out Apple’s own custom SIM eject tool. 😉

 

[zephonic]

I travel a lot between Europe and the US. I really hope this doesn’t mean I won’t be able to switch SIMs in the future.

 

[oeyvind]

Interesting. I have yet to find a country that offers eSims for prepaid

Buy eSIMs for international travel - Airalo

Find travel eSIMs for iPhone, iPad, and Android devices in over 200 destinations. Purchase data for countries, regions, or global connection.

www.airalo.com

 

[amartinez1660]

Interesting. I have yet to find a country that offers eSims for prepaid

iPhone 13?

Seems like a cost savings exercise, reminiscent of deleting the power adapter and EarPods from iPhone 11 boxes. Delete SIM tray and the ejector tool.

Thankfully, this seems to be limited to U.S. only.

And that includes the US. Without the physical SIM I won't be able to upgrade with my cheap T-Mobile $15/mo plan.

I don’t know how it would work later on but I was delighted to discover all this eSIM tech in my currently still ongoing travel to the US.

Got a couple surprise roaming charges that bothered me badly. So downloaded a T-Mobile app, set up an eSIM thing, 5mins later I had a second line up and running without having had to visit any store or wait for a SIM chip to arrive, for the grand total of $25 for text-voice-data for 30 days.

Also iOS (most recent) made it really easy to continue on: it auto detected that a new line got activated, showed a pop up prompt to add it next to the other, manage the other(s), and a series of new options appeared on settings/cellular when using more than one line that I didn’t know existed (like, assigning contacts a default line to start messages and conversations from).

Canadian telecoms charge an eye for each roaming day: $10 a day for the US, higher sometimes the further away. They say “up to a max of 15 days per billing cycle” but you will likely hit many days before and after that billing day resetting the count and likely going over that 15-days cap.

For the price of only 2.5 roaming days and none of the hassles, lineups, open/close hours, or wait on the phone, etc managed to get 30 days worth of fully functional up to 5G (when there’s coverage) cell service.

I understand that there’s the worry of what will happen, if it will allow multiple lines (it currently did for me, one physical sim and one eSIM) or if some countries won’t have it… but to be honest just from my latest experience, the amount of money saved and the incredible convenience of going about it while sacrificing none of the benefits makes me think that this is the future. Sooner or later everybody will catch up… just like some places only had CDMA and then 3G and then 4G, or only had SIM and then nanoSIM, it’s only a matter of time for it to be all eSIM.

 

[JippaLippa]

I think it's too early to drop the physical sim.
Cool to make it available as a choice, but my carrier (fir example) doesn't support this feature.
Knowing Apple it'll be a feature of the 14 Pro model, therefore if you'll want to have a normal sim, you'll have to buy the lower model.

 

[verdi1987]

And that includes the US. Without the physical SIM I won't be able to upgrade with my cheap T-Mobile $15/mo plan.

Mint Mobile has eSIM.

 

[verdi1987]

It does make me wonder, though, if this will require Apple to make two versions of each model available. Cellular providers in some countries are still going to insist on iPhones with physical SIM cards.

Apple makes a model specifically for China that has two physical SIMs and no eSIM. They also make a version for Russia and a few former Soviet states. Then there’s the U.S.-only model plus two more that cover the rest of the world.

 

[kognos]

RIP easy SIM swaps while traveling

Multiple eSIM is >>> physical SIM.

While there will inevitably be a few months to a year worth of pain for Apple's "courage", just like Bluetooth, the carriers will be pushed to provide eSIM by default. There are already lots that offer it, but also lots that don't and some that offer it poorly. It'll pan out over time I hope.

 

[bollman]

Then I truly do not believe this story at all. I currently have two numbers on one iPhone ... my personal and my business. And so far dual-SIM has only ever worked perfectly ... or at all ... on iPhones ... for years. Dual-SIM on Android phones has been hot garbage. So I've only stuck with iPhone for this very pertinent and crucial reason. If they get rid of dual SIM, that would be awful. I don't see them doing this. But then again, they have taken away ridiculous things before. I know there are other services for providing a second number on a phone, but I don't want to go through an extra step to do so. It's always been so simple on the iPhone.

This makes me seriously doubt you use dual-SIM that much.
The iPhone is lightyears behind the competition in this area. The iPhone still only has one radio for 2 SIMs. This means that if one line is busy, the other line isn't "busy", it's offline! There are tons of other drawbacks to using one radio for 2 SIMs. Apple was very late into the dual-SIM-game, and it's only halfhearted executed (OMG the line selector is in an awkward place in the phone-app). My Samsung S10 had dual radio, and so does most "flagship" Android phone, and has had for quite some time. Granted, bringing dual-SIM to the iPhone at least gives me the ability to use an iPhone, but it's a lot more of a "hot mess" on the iPhone than on a flagship Android.

 

[verdi1987]

I don’t have a strong opinion one way or the other, but I‘m not sure how realistic it is to get all the smaller carriers and MVNO switched to eSIM before September.

 

[LogicalApex]

I am sure a major motivation for Apple is AppleCare + Theft & Loss protection. Without a physical sim the device is far more likely to be reachable via its eSIM.

 

[9725939]

Interesting. I have yet to find a country that offers eSims for prepaid

In Moldova Orange offers eSim for prepaid users. Pretty neat. Come visit us 😅

 

[Mr. Dee]

And that includes the US. Without the physical SIM I won't be able to upgrade with my cheap T-Mobile $15/mo plan.

I’m on that plan myself. Meets all my needs too, I have WiFi at home and I also get free WiFi at work. Would be unfair to have to upgrade my plan if I do switch to one of these phones in the future.

 

[old-school]

I can’t see how this isn’t just obvious and good progress. Eliminating the SIM card is long overdue, feels very old fashioned to be sliding in a little plastic card into a £1k piece of technology. eSIM is slicker and frees up space. Everyone will adopt the eSIM platform (most carriers do already). And no reason I can see not to have multiple eSIMs in one device for even better transition than before. Also paved the way for other devices to manage this electronically such as iPad and whatever other cellular devices Apple is working on.

 

[mariusignorello]

Maybe Tim Apple wants you to purchase TWO iPhones if you have two different phone numbers. I sense sales and profit.

In September 2022, Tim Cook will say “Today, I am thrilled to announce the iPhone 14, it is the first iPhone ever that is a sim-free iPhone" This is the best iPhone ever. We people at Apple, think you are going to love it".​

I have a Dual SIM iPhone right now and use both lines on it.

 

[verdi1987]

I am sure a major motivation for Apple is AppleCare + Theft & Loss protection. Without a physical sim the device is far more likely to be reachable via its eSIM.

Do you mean in order to prevent insurance fraud?

 

[BimBamSmash]

So, suppose they removed the SIM slot and also the connection port at the bottom of the device. Will they start including wireless chargers in the box, or will they keep on selling those separately? I mean, they won't be able to claim they are not including chargers for the benefit of the environment then.

 

[ghanwani]

The $399 question -- will the iPhone SE3 have a SIM card tray?

 

[macintoshmac]

Apple is great. Apple is good. All hail Tim Apple.

That about sums it up neatly.

 

[ghanwani]

So, suppose they removed the SIM slot and also the connection port at the bottom of the device. Will they start including wireless chargers in the box, or will they keep on selling those separately? I mean, they won't be able to claim they are not including chargers for the benefit of the environment then.

They'll be able to drop the charging cable as well and claim that to be a benefit for the environment.

 

[d4cloo]

More anti-competitive behavior;

1. With eSIM, Apple now controls the list of carriers presented to the user, instead of a customer being able to insert any arbitrarily provider SIM card.

2. Apple can in the future add their own carrier (“Apple Telecom”) which I believe they will, and put themselves on the top of the carrier list or have some sort or provide OS-level feature no other carrier can provide since they don’t make the OS/hardware. Think Apple promoting Apple Arcade or TV in the operating system’s Settings pane, having not allowed Spotify to be used in conjunction with Siri for years, etc.

Apple wants to own it all. I don’t trust them.

 

[macintoshmac]

The courage to remove the physical SIM card tray from a.... phone.

Tim: "Only Apple could do it! We are thrilled to see what the telecom developers are able to do with an all-eSIM iPhone!"
Phil: "Another moment of the infamous Apple Courage."
Steve: "You were putting the SIM wrong all the time anyway. This solves it."

On another note, I wonder what their reasoning or excuse or explanation of courage (depending on how you feel about Apple) will be. I am quite sure this will save the world a lot of plastic just as it does with the Apple chargers we are still buying, thanks to the Gods at Apple.

Also, I am looking forward to seeing what they are going to use the space for and how meaningful it would truly be for people.

 

[d4cloo]

They'll be able to drop the charging cable as well and claim that to be a benefit for the environment.

But at the same time one of the biggest reasons why wireless chargers are bad for the environment is that they use a lot more energy than a standard wired smartphone cable.
According to one report, it takes 15 watt-hours to charge a device using a cable, but on a wireless charger, it's around 21 watt-hours.

And it’s not that these wireless chargers are better for the environment on their own; although they might last longer because you don’t yank the connectors in and out, the device itself uses more materials that impact the environment.

Apple is weird when it comes to this subject. They claim the iMac is environmental friendly at each update keynote, however they are not allowing us to use the iMac as an external monitor in case the computer died, or connect the brains to another monitor when the monitor broke.
They don’t design their devices around environmental considerations; they only check the standard boxes they have been for years.

 

[one more]

Interesting. I have yet to find a country that offers eSims for prepaid

Swisscom in Switzerland do. ?

 

[AppliedMicro]

Swisscom in Switzerland do. ?

Others too (though not everyone yet).

Deutsche Telekom and Congstar in Germany as well.