Apple Has Considered Removing SIM Card Slot From Some iPhone 14 Models

[verdi1987]

Can anyone explain why you can't have three SIMs in an iPhone 13 Pro Max? It supports either one hardware SIM and one eSIM or two eSIM but not two eSIM and one physical SIM.

You can store as many as you want, but only two can be active at once. On my iPhone 12 Pro I have a physical SIM and three eSIMs.

 

[turbineseaplane]

This is stupid. My carrier supports esim but you have to pay $25 for it and it can only be used once. So if you need to swap between phones it's $25 each time lmao.

^^ This

And that sort of thing will get more normalized if SIM slots go away, as the carriers will have everyone by the balls.

 

[russell_314]

It’s going to happen sooner or later. Obviously in countries where eSIM support is not good Apple will make a different version. A lot of people don’t realize it but there are different versions of iPhone in different regions. The iPhone you buy in China is not the same as the iPhone you buy in the USA

 

[jasonsmith_88]

Please no. My telco in Australia (Optus) requires you to visit a store in person during business hours to provision an e-sim. Too bad if you break your phone overseas, with a physical sim you can just swap but with esim you’re stuck until you return to Australia. Really really really bad for expats and travellers.

E-sim is only more convenient in theory. In practice it’s significantly less convenient.

 

[zorinlynx]

This will inconvenience people at first because many carriers only support physical SIMs, especially countries besides the US. You can arrive at your destination airport, buy and pop in a prepaid SIM, and be online without having to hunt for any WiFi to download an eSIM.

HOWEVER, long-term this may be a good thing. Carriers don't want to lose revenue to other carriers who support eSIMs well, so they'll finally fix their systems and make eSIM activation as smooth a process as possible. As soon as you have a substantial percentage of phones out there without SIM slots, eSIMs will be perfected VERY quickly.

 

[bviktor]

You can purchase pre-paid SIMs with cash and immediately get service. With eSIM, you need to provide either personal info or at minimum some kind of credit card.

Nothing beats physical SIM for privacy. This is probably one of the reasons why Apple is hesitant to remove it. But at the same time, Apple can't monetize physical SIMs the way they can with eSIM. Since Apple's implementation of eSIM is proprietary, they serve as a gatekeeper authorizing only certain carriers.

How much money do you think Apple "makes" on eSIMs, seriously? Care to provide any sources? Coz I couldn't find any. In any case, we can probably agree that it's not a major source of revenue.

Get GigSky, Ubigi, Truphone, and you'll get service with an app-provided eSIM even BEFORE even reaching the country. With a tap. SIMs sold at airports are ridiculously priced anyway.

There's no such thing as "privacy" on a mobile carrier. Even with a prepaid SIM. And it'll only get better/worse (depending on your perspective).

Identity verification: EU’s mandatory SIM card registration

New regulation implements severe controls and sanctions for those companies selling anonymous pre-paid SIM cards.

www.miteksystems.com

Not only that, but your IMEI will also be visible to the carrier, with which they can track you all they want.

If you want privacy, use VPN. Or in the very least, change your DNS server from automatic to Cloudflare or Quad9 (1.1.1.1 / 9.9.9.9).

 

[frownface]

Right now, yes it will but this will also motivate these carriers to move to eSIM specially if they already are Apple partners and authorized to sell Apple products.

That would be a naïve way of thinking.

Here in Australia, we have 3 main carriers, all of which support esim; and dozens of MVNOs that resell product from the main 3. Few to none of the MVNOs offer esim; not for lack of wanting to but because the main carriers don't[*] resell that feature. They argue that esim is a premium feature and if people want it; then they have to get it from the carrier themselves for a premium price.

* No longer true, at least one carrier offers to resell the esim feature to MNVOs, but at a price that basically puts those MVNOs in competition with the main carriers.

Cutting out physical sims from the system will push out a lot of those MVNOs from operating in what already is a low margin market.

 

[bviktor]

This will inconvenience people at first because many carriers only support physical SIMs, especially countries besides the US. You can arrive at your destination airport, buy and pop in a prepaid SIM, and be online without having to hunt for any WiFi to download an eSIM.

HOWEVER, long-term this may be a good thing. Carriers don't want to lose revenue to other carriers who support eSIMs well, so they'll finally fix their systems and make eSIM activation as smooth a process as possible. As soon as you have a substantial percentage of phones out there without SIM slots, eSIMs will be perfected VERY quickly.

You don't have to "hunt" for WiFi, you can buy your eSIM before traveling. Get GigSky, Ubigi, Truphone, like I mentioned above. It's crazy people don't use these apps, they're so much more convenient (and often cheaper) than those local prepaid SIMs.

 

[B-Mc-C]

No discussion of how dual SIM set up would work? Currently, one of my lines is an ESIM and the other physical SIM. Wondering how they would work this to preserve the feature.

Edit: I now see the suggestion is the phone will be able to handle dual ESIMs

iPhone 13 already handles dual eSIMs. The iPhone 14’s X65 modem can handle more than two active at the same time.

 

[einsteinbqat]

Yeah, my carrier charges a fee for a new eSIM should I change my iPhone.

 

[mabhatter]

Good riddance! More space for an upgraded audio chip perhaps?

Shave another .2mm of that thing!! Next up removing the lightning ports... And volume buttons.

 

[Makosuke]

I have no particular love of SIM cards and am not in one of the demographics that have multiple SIM cards and swaps them on a regular basis (I would guess there are very few such consumers in the US, although I'm aware it's much more common in other parts of the world and not without good reason).

That said, every time my family gets a new phone, I put my SIM in it and my (much less tech-demanding) significant other's SIM gets put in my 1-2 year old phone. It takes the better part of two minutes to do this and is foolproof, in comparison to the one time I tried to have my carrier do it and eventually just gave up and swapped SIMs myself without telling them.

Which is to say, this is only going to be a non-negative change if carriers actually have a functional way of doing this quickly and efficiently without having to call some overworked customer service rep who will probably botch it on the first try.

Who knows, if Apple enables dual-eSIM it might even be a net positive.

 

[M.Rizk]

I have no particular love of SIM cards and am not in one of the demographics that have multiple SIM cards and swaps them on a regular basis (I would guess there are very few such consumers in the US, although I'm aware it's much more common in other parts of the world and not without good reason).

That said, every time my family gets a new phone, I put my SIM in it and my (much less tech-demanding) significant other's SIM gets put in my 1-2 year old phone. It takes the better part of two minutes to do this and is foolproof, in comparison to the one time I tried to have my carrier do it and eventually just gave up and swapped SIMs myself without telling them.

Which is to say, this is only going to be a non-negative change if carriers actually have a functional way of doing this quickly and efficiently without having to call some overworked customer service rep who will probably botch it on the first try.

Who knows, if Apple enables dual-eSIM it might even be a net positive.

Just wanted to point out that dual eSIM is already a thing on iPhone 13.

 

[M.Rizk]

Please no. My telco in Australia (Optus) requires you to visit a store in person during business hours to provision an e-sim. Too bad if you break your phone overseas, with a physical sim you can just swap but with esim you’re stuck until you return to Australia. Really really really bad for expats and travellers.

E-sim is only more convenient in theory. In practice it’s significantly less convenient.

Imagine if these companies (Apple, etc) never innovated because carriers are always backwards and never want to spend the money on new tech. We would probably be still using full sized SIM cards the size of a credit card inserting it into an Apple iPhone the size of a sneaker with an external antenna.

Apple shouldn’t wait on these carriers to follow the GSMA standard.

My carrier makes the process so easy that if I get my phone stolen overseas, I’d be able to install a new eSIM profile on a newly bought phone in under 5 minutes. In fact that’s how I got my first eSIM ever. I bought my iPhone XS Max overseas and activated it via eSIM using my carrier app in just a few seconds.

 

[M.Rizk]

This will inconvenience people at first because many carriers only support physical SIMs, especially countries besides the US. You can arrive at your destination airport, buy and pop in a prepaid SIM, and be online without having to hunt for any WiFi to download an eSIM.

HOWEVER, long-term this may be a good thing. Carriers don't want to lose revenue to other carriers who support eSIMs well, so they'll finally fix their systems and make eSIM activation as smooth a process as possible. As soon as you have a substantial percentage of phones out there without SIM slots, eSIMs will be perfected VERY quickly.

This. Carriers specially Apple partners will be forced to adapt. That or they won’t be able to sell iPhones anymore, or have iPhone customers and that will be a massive loss to them.

It is already proven iPhone customers spend more on average on the AppStore. Those same customers also most likely spend more on cellular plans and no carrier would want to lose on them. Even if a cheap MVNO.

 

[M.Rizk]

^^ This

And that sort of thing will get more normalized if SIM slots go away, as the carriers will have everyone by the balls.

Your carrier will always have you by the balls even if we end SIM cards both physical and eSIM. If they want to charge you something they’ll always find a way to put said charge on your account.

They can add it as an administrative fee. As a call setup fee. As 5G access fee. As an iMessage gateway registration fee. This won’t change a thing.

Also remember that you can always vote with your wallet.

 

[M.Rizk]

Apple Watch actually has its own phone number, but through carrier magicry, calls get routed to both phone numbers (really isn’t too different from a call forwarding system). And then when you make calls out from the Watch it’ll caller ID spoof so that it’s not the actual phone number on the Watch but your phone number on your iPhone (Not really spoofing because you still own the number it’s using, but it’s the same idea, use a different number than the actual number).

Also I think SMS doesn’t actually go to the Watch either, it just syncs SMS over data to your iPhone, I don’t think you can do SMS in the usual way with the Watch (sending and receiving directly). What’s hilarious is that I use AT&T and to use 2-factor sign ins on their app they give an option to send an SMS to my Watch phone number, but that SMS never reaches my Watch, it just goes to a black hole. So I have to make sure I have my iPhone phone number set for 2 factor.

As far as I know, the magic here is that the Watch uses VoLTE. It basically logs in to the carrier IMS (the server doing VoLTE) using the same credentials as your iPhone which is why it gets calls heading to your iPhone number.

While I do not have solid proof, I do believe that Apple requires the carrier to support VoLTE before they can support the Apple Watch and that probably explains why a text message sent to the Watch “number” won’t be received. The Watch simply doesn’t do “SMS” or “Voice calls over circuit connection” like the old 3G days. It does it exclusivity via VoLTE (packet data connection).

 

[M.Rizk]

This is stupid. My carrier supports esim but you have to pay $25 for it and it can only be used once. So if you need to swap between phones it's $25 each time lmao.

And that’s your carrier’s decision. It has nothing to do with eSIM as a technology. This is something they decided to do because they feel like you’re a premium customer who is asking for something that isn’t a necessity.

Once eSIM becomes a necessity they’ll start treating it like they do with physical SIM cards.

 

[jaytv111]

As far as I know, the magic here is that the Watch uses VoLTE. It basically logs in to the carrier IMS (the server doing VoLTE) using the same credentials as your iPhone which is why it gets calls heading to your iPhone number.

While I do not have solid proof, I do believe that Apple requires the carrier to support VoLTE before they can support the Apple Watch and that probably explains why a text message sent to the Watch “number” won’t be received. The Watch simply doesn’t do “SMS” or “Voice calls over circuit connection” like the old 3G days. It does it exclusivity via VoLTE (packet data connection).

Pretty sure Apple Watches make calls on 3G too. They just don’t support 2G or CDMA networks.

IMS and voLTE were nice to have (and voLTE was required for CDMA networks that moved to LTE, Sprint and Verizon) but I’m pretty sure it’s basically simultaneous ringing for cellular calls which as a feature works over any phone system out there (my parents have a landline that offers simultaneous ring).

You can actually call the Watch’s phone number and it works. You can make calls out and it rings with my normal number (but that’s just the caller ID sort of spoofing doing what it’s supposed to do). The one thing that never works is sending an SMS to the Watch phone number.

 

[Mity]

iPhones sold in China have two physical SIM slots. I wonder what they'll do there.

For people that travel, physical SIM cards are much better. I would much prefer to carry nano SIMs than credit card size activation cards.

What we really need is USB-C. I will not buy another iPhone until inferior Lightening is removed.

 

[sdf]

This is the sort of rumour that really doesn't have much value. This thing that wasn't a serious rumour before? We're down to the wire, and it's not happening.

 

[Pezimak]

If they did that I wouldn’t be able to get one, because my provider doesn’t support e sim and no way am I changing them. Apple would be making a massive mistake if they did that at present.

 

[madebybela]

I'd be willing to sacrifice sim tray slot for headphone jack

 

[KPOM]

This may affect and bother a lot of people but for me, I like the move, been using the esim feature with att ever since it came out on iPhones.

It’s about time. Carriers need to get on board the eSIM if they haven’t already.

 

[startergo]

The experience with buying and using an eSIM needs to get a little better, but there's no fundamental reason why physical SIMs need to stick around. They're a weird artifact which will definitely be gone in a decade or two.

What if you are traveling internationally and want to use local SIM abroad? That is the usual usage scenario.