You have a local number as a requirement.
A lot of travellers, especially tourists, don't need that.
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Apple Promotes Benefits of Using iPhone 14 With eSIM While Traveling Abroad
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You have a local number as a requirement.
A lot of travellers, especially tourists, don't need that.
Business traveler like me aren’t small portion.
Same apply to countries that can’t support esim now for prepaid.
I refuse to be robbed by airalo- to me it’s no better than carriers.
Mexico averaging 5 USD per GB. None of them are local Mexican telecoms but rather outside providers backing on roaming. You can get 5GB prepaid in Mexico for about 12 USD.
The question asked wasn't "how can I get eSIM which competes with SIMs on price".
Here's the thing.
If you can't get into a country without having a local number, most tourist's won't come.
If you can't take a cab, travel by train or bus, book a hotel or any other such things, without a local number, their tourist traffic will decline dramatically.
I would never travel to another country as a tourist with such a requirement and I think most US tourists would agree with me.
What asian countries are you going to? I’ve been to Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Hongkong, Macau (casinos thingy), Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand.
All have esim and I have no problem activating them. One of the fun thing is while I’m on the airplane, I installed the carrier app and activate my esim even before I visit the country then the moment the airplane landed, I have a local number plus my roaming Tmobile.
And I’ve been using esim in Vietnam for quite some time. Not sure what’s the fuss is about?
There is no way to have local number with esim in Japan, HongKong.
Because it’s not offered.
3rd party esim is just another version of data roaming.
Do you really know what you’re talking about??
I’ve just come back from Japan and docomo works just fine.
I came back from Japan last Tuesday on UA 876 from Haneda.
You can’t get prepaid esim with local number. Period.
eSIMについて | ドコモUIMカード／ドコモeSIMカード／eSIMについて | お客さまサポート | NTTドコモ
eSIMをご利用になるためのお申込み方法やeSIMの再発行、eSIMの開通方法（設定方法）などをご案内いたします。
ESIM are reserved for post paid. To get a postpaid plan you need japan legal residency.
You don’t know what you are talking about.
3rd party ESIM provider are data only.
If you're a business traveller, then your company should reimburse you for your roam expenses or international data charges. When you were at Apple, you said that you racked up $2000-3000 in phone charges ... I'm guessing Apple paid them for you.
If a business requires you to travel to one of these places that don't have/allow eSIM and they require you to be in communication, then that business needs to provide you with the tools to do so. If that means they set you up with another phone during your travels, then so be it. If that means they have folks at the destination location that assist you in getting an eSIM, or local number, then that's the answer.
There are always fringe use cases that get left out when standards change. You may think that moving from SIM to eSIM is an unnecessary change, but Apple doesn't seem to think so. Just like the dwindling number of people that don't want to move on from Lightning, but that'll happen too. People didn't want to move on from TouchID, but it happened.
Seems like a business opportunity for a Mexican carrier to set up shop at the airport to provide eSIM plans that beat airalo prices.
That’s what I meant, as a tourist, you cant get a local number there. And many people are yelling that they need a local number when they travel. Just plain stupid. Dataplan is enough with whatapp, viber, kakaotalk, and wechat.I came back from Japan last Tuesday on UA 876 from Haneda.
You can’t get prepaid esim with local number. Period.
eSIMについて | ドコモUIMカード／ドコモeSIMカード／eSIMについて | お客さまサポート | NTTドコモ
eSIMをご利用になるためのお申込み方法やeSIMの再発行、eSIMの開通方法（設定方法）などをご案内いたします。www.docomo.ne.jp
ESIM are reserved for post paid. To get a postpaid plan you need japan legal residency.
You don’t know what you are talking about.
3rd party ESIM provider are data only.
I have residency in Tokyo and esim works wonderfully.
That isn’t true. Try to make booking with foreign number in any of good restaurants in Tokyo.
Even Uber took 15 minutes after ride is over from Haneda to Hyatt Regency and connected me with the driver thru chicago number.
I am still amazed that Uber connected me almost 1.5 hours after ride is over. (Yes that was my fault for not switching over to local number).
It’s not seamless without local number. That is the point.
A little side note about Samsung phones.
The A53 does support dual physical SIM cards.
Rather than make several versions of the same phone, Samsung disables one of the slots in the firmware when they ship to the US market. That second physical SIM slot is usable.
You just need to install firmware for the India market on the phone to enable the second slot. (This disables eSIM)
There's a high probability that the US sales guy had no clue you needed to do that.
Your argument is irrelevant to the esim. Even with the physical sim, you can’t get a local number at all as a foreigner in Japan due to regulation.
And in many places, you can’t even enter if you’re a foreigner. (You know what I mean, wink wink)
I had a chance to live in tokyo for quite some time and discrimination runs deep in the country, but again, this has nothing to do with the esim.
Edit: do you know when did they stop selling PayG sim? Japan must really hate foreigners …
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Oh...yeah...because you can't simply disable your sim with your carrier In just a few minutes. I have zero fear of my SIM card being stolen.
A supposedly "locked" phone giving unfettered access to the camera and allowing people to put whatever images they want in your phone is a real security issue. How about addressing THAT.
More hysteria on this topic. In Steve Jobs own words:
"If the market tells us we are making the wrong choices we listen to the market. We are just people running this company. We're trying to make great products for people. And so we have at least the courage of our convictions to say we don't think this is part of what makes a great product and we're gonna leave it out. Some people are not gonna like that, and they're gonna call us names, and it's not going to be in certain companies vested interests that we do that.
But we are gonna take the heat cause we wanna make the best product in the world for customers. We’re gonna instead focus our energy on these technologies which we think are in their ascendency and we think are going to be the right technologies for customers. And you know what, they are paying us to make those choices, thats what a lot of customers pay us to do. Is to try to make the best products we can. And if we succeed they'll buy them, and if we don't they won't! And it will all work itself out!"
"If the market tells us we are making the wrong choices we listen to the market. We are just people running this company. We're trying to make great products for people. And so we have at least the courage of our convictions to say we don't think this is part of what makes a great product and we're gonna leave it out. Some people are not gonna like that, and they're gonna call us names, and it's not going to be in certain companies vested interests that we do that.
But we are gonna take the heat cause we wanna make the best product in the world for customers. We’re gonna instead focus our energy on these technologies which we think are in their ascendency and we think are going to be the right technologies for customers. And you know what, they are paying us to make those choices, thats what a lot of customers pay us to do. Is to try to make the best products we can. And if we succeed they'll buy them, and if we don't they won't! And it will all work itself out!"
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I actually didn’t know PayG sim was discontinued. It was available about 6 months ago.
That is what I am using. They really really don’t like us
Not being able to pop into a market and purchase a prepaid SIM while traveling is going to be a huge issue for some of my work colleagues.
I don't travel internationally yet personally, but I intended to do this coming year, and was looking forward to doing just that. One reason I will keep my ole Xs Max around!
I don't travel internationally yet personally, but I intended to do this coming year, and was looking forward to doing just that. One reason I will keep my ole Xs Max around!
What an absolutely silly way to describe people's concern for the actual problem. And if it doesn't affect YOU, then why are you commenting in the first place? This is about limiting connectivity options and by Apple's own actions, they know it's not a popular choice since they've only done it in the US. It's a problem moving forward so getting an iPhone 13 isn't an actual solution. The mentality that Apple always does right is as ridiculous as this move.
My team worked with jobs once a week (I wouldn’t call it pleasant). He would never do anything that impact the experience of the customers. ESIM as a technology is the future no one is disputing that. But this is something out of Apple control. Apple literally have very low influence on how infrastructure is being built or carrier implement ESIM. Jobs is a control freak- he wouldn’t have allowed that. Just not his personality.
iPhone 14 pro max isn’t selling as well as before. I am amazed this is first time I can still pick up one today at SF Bay Area as of 10 min ago.
(I am so tempted to pick up one to prove a point- but Taiwan just announced dealing away with Quarantine starting on 10/10)
Lastly- let’s not always believe what Jobs says to public. The reason why Apple bankrupted Pioneer Blu-ray drive, wasn’t all based on Apple saw the future and realize streaming was way to go (at that time the infrastructure was still about 2 years away). I would say its more like 2/3 of reason is Jobs can’t stand mechanical noise (he also hates fan noise).
As a public figure he has a lot of charisma and he can spin things like a wizard. Behind close door, reality is pretty different from public.
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