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Apple Proposes Standard for Smaller SIM Cards to Make Even Thinner iPhones

Crzyrio said:
The same reason people have started adopting micro-sim. Apple is one of the very few people that use it but yes it out there and it hasn't bothered people but i am sure that little bit of space made a difference in making of the iPhone 4.

In order to move forward in one aspect you need to sacrifice another aspect. I am not saying apple's need for a smaller sim is justified, but i not saying its not justified either. All i am saying is don't judge until you see the final product. Stop being so angry about everything.

You don't know the reason for the smaller sim, it dosent have to mean thinner phone. For all your know it could be some revolutionary breakthrough in which helps the next iPhone achiever 10 times more battery power :p

With the revolution in interface it made way for the design to be implemented more easily. I dont remember seeing any design similar to the iphone on the mainstream before the iPhone do you?


Its funny how people are hating on this smaller card because they think the iphone is gonna become smaller but are fine with a soft sim card?
I know we would all rather have soft sim card's but that means it gives apple the chance to make the phones even smaller?
Click to expand...

Touch screen phones with no keyboards? Er yeap they were out before the iPhone mate, and they had more features too. The soft sim was slated by the industry and the network providers hence Apple were not allowed to implement it, and there is no tech they can come up with to warrant smaller sim card as the space saving is minimal.
I like having volume buttons and on he very thin phones reviewers have already slated the button sizes on the side.
Apple should just leave well alone. And as for innovation, well it seems plenty of other manufacturers are coping pretty well in that department without forcing an entire industry to adopt a new standard for their selfish gains.

And a LOT of people would rather not have soft sims, because they like to change phones every year and it would be an additional pain to use. Most likely why the network operators said no.
 
Daveoc64 said:
I'm not really sure how they can introduce a smaller card without breaking compatibility with older devices.
Click to expand...

Your point? We can't release Mac OS X Lion without breaking compatibility with older devices.

For starters, I remember my last phone that used a credit card sized SIM. It was an enormous phone and it ended up in the garbage heap over 10 years ago.

And don't forget that if you have an iPhone and dump it in favor of a Droid or something else that doesn't use the new SIM, your provider can easily replace your SIM for you. Problem solved. Panties unbunched.
 
dvkid said:
And don't forget that if you have an iPhone and dump it in favor of a Droid or something else that doesn't use the new SIM, your provider can easily replace your SIM for you. Problem solved. Panties unbunched.
Click to expand...

I can swap my phone whenever I want without having to tell my carrier. Many carriers have made it very difficult to switch between Mini and Micro SIMs since the launch of the iPhone 4 - they want to control how you use your SIM. My panties will remain "bunched" as long as Apple wants to take convenience away from users.

dvkid said:
For starters, I remember my last phone that used a credit card sized SIM.
Click to expand...

That's largely irrelevant.

The point is that the chip hasn't ever changed.

To make the card smaller, they'd almost certainly have to change the chip contact - which would mean it simply wouldn't work on ANY (Mini, Micro or Full Sized SIM) existing devices - that's not just 10+ year old devices, but the iPhone 4.

It's possible that an adapter would be available, but we'll have to see (as no details of the "standard" have been released yet).
 
In a few years I will be able to use my iPhone to cut my bread in the morning. Or kill someone. Seriously, it's fine as it is. Just make it better now. Feature wise.
 
apolloa said:
Touch screen phones with no keyboards? Er yeap they were out before the iPhone mate, and they had more features too. The soft sim was slated by the industry and the network providers hence Apple were not allowed to implement it, and there is no tech they can come up with to warrant smaller sim card as the space saving is minimal.
I like having volume buttons and on he very thin phones reviewers have already slated the button sizes on the side.
Apple should just leave well alone. And as for innovation, well it seems plenty of other manufacturers are coping pretty well in that department without forcing an entire industry to adopt a new standard for their selfish gains.

And a LOT of people would rather not have soft sims, because they like to change phones every year and it would be an additional pain to use. Most likely why the network operators said no.
Click to expand...


Yeah but none of them made it out to the consumer or did as well. Can you show me some of these phones you speak off?

As someone mentioned before that i cant find right now.... the current sim card size means that the sim has to sit horizontally. If a smaller one were made, apple or whoever else could implement it in a different way clearing up a fairly large bump inside of the phone. Think about it, outside of the box.

Yeah and phone industry was doing fine before the iPhone too but then the iPhone came and changed it.

Well then those people should stick to phone that don't use it. Soft Sim cards seem pretty likely to be the future. Although i doubt Apple would sell only soft sim iPhone to began but eventually i believe all phone will go into that direction once the formalities are figured out.
 
Kind of makes me wonder why they need a SIM card. Isn't there a way to program the info without the need of a card? I've never removed or exchanged my SIM cards across the history of SIM cards.

Hey, anything to make the phones smaller. Soon we'll have a far thinner phone coming down the pike (reference the "paper phone"). Compression and simplification is the constant motive of electronics manufacturers. The posts here of the luddites are ridiculous.

*LTD* said:
HP: "We're not convinced." :p
Click to expand...

No doubt.
 
Would this be a good thread to point out that my favorite phone was the old Nokia's with the plastic clip that ratcheted around? I had one until AT&T forced me years ago to upgrade to the fancy new EDGE network... which was AT&T's service decline IMHO :D
nokia8200series-2.jpg
 
Embedded sims suck and give way to much power to the carrier. I have no idea why some of your guys think they are good.

Look at Verizon/Sprint, you can't even use one phone on the other carrier because they refuse to active each other's embedded sim.
 
It really doesnt need "Thinner & Lighter" any more. Keep it the same size, with battery technology improving, I think it would be better to brag about

30% Longer Lasting Battery!

instead of

1.012392842mm thinner AND 0.76540939211 grams lighter!!!!
 
aibo82 said:
How thin does it need to be they wont shrink the iPhone in hight and width so why does it matter!

Now they may make a thinner iphone but the sim card is 1mm thick anyway, so what we expecting a 3mm thick iphone 5?

Apple are just messing about trying to re-invent the wheel instead of just coming out with revolutionary new things!

have they run out of ideas?

Apple tell me when you make a smaller paper clip, or a thinner sheet of paper!
Click to expand...

You do realize that they are not the first with a micro sized sim card right? They are simply proposing a standard.
 
Lesser Evets said:
Kind of makes me wonder why they need a SIM card. Isn't there a way to program the info without the need of a card? I've never removed or exchanged my SIM cards across the history of SIM cards.

Hey, anything to make the phones smaller. Soon we'll have a far thinner phone coming down the pike (reference the "paper phone"). Compression and simplification is the constant motive of electronics manufacturers. The posts here of the luddites are ridiculous.



No doubt.
Click to expand...

fabian9 said:
I don't think thickness makes much of a difference here. As it stands at the moment, the sim has to lie parallel to the front and rear face of the phone in order to fit in - an orientation that takes away a lot of real estate in the two horizontal directions. A smaller (note not necessarily thinner!) sim card would allow apple to package it in a different orientation, freeing up space for other components.



Because advances in technology don't happen overnight - they evolve with time. If you can't get rid of the SIM, make it as small as you can. Why not make it smaller if you can? Would you rather have a larger battery and better battery life, or use an old-fashioned sim card?

On a different note, could you link to some phones that 1) had a similar design and UI to iPhone before 2007. And 2) some phones that are thinner, use mini sims and offer the same performance as the iPhone 4?
Click to expand...

Hehe, and here everyone bashed CDMA... No SIM, can't swap phones as easily. Yet here we are with folks that claim they never change out the SIM in their phone. So having a CDMA phone (strictly speaking of SIM versus ESN) would make no difference...
 
Actually, the full sized sim is the one on the LEFT

Sorry for the nerd detail here, but the "full sized" sim card is the credit card sized carrier on the left (didn't you ever wonder what the hell they were for?) The original idea is that you'd carry it in your wallet and plug it into your car when you got in (since a mobile phone is too big to carry, especially the battery). So if you use your spouse's car (or your spouse uses yours) or a rental car your phone number would still work.

When phones got small enough, the mini-sim was developed, which is the large (but no as large) thing on the right.

So now you know.
 
Daveoc64 said:
I can swap my phone whenever I want without having to tell my carrier. Many carriers have made it very difficult to switch between Mini and Micro SIMs since the launch of the iPhone 4 - they want to control how you use your SIM. My panties will remain "bunched" as long as Apple wants to take convenience away from users.
Click to expand...
A For the record, I switch sim cards between phones regularly.

Why Apple wanted a soft SIM, or for this smaller SIM, is because they care about freeing up as much space inside the device as possible. If you've ever taken apart an Apple product or read a tear-down you'll know how incredibly meticulous and efficient Apple hardware designs are. This is why Apple have the longest battery lives in their products despite also being the thinnest.

In regards to your assumption on inconvenience, you're simply jumping to the conclusion a soft SIM would make it inconvenient for users. What if the procedure to switch accounts between phones was as simple as logging in on the new phone? Would that not be considerably faster and preferable? (I know I would prefer it.) But furthermore, it would solve this problem of several different SIM card sizes.

If anything, customer convenience is the one thing Apple relies on in their business model. So I find it unlikely they'd make a previously simple task more difficult for consumers.
 
Last edited:
Thinner versus Smaller

The title of the story indicated a "thinner" iPhone. If the SIM is punched out of the same card, it would not be thinner. Smaller could be an advantage, however, for additional circuits or battery space, as others have posted.
 
EssentialParado said:
If anything, customer convenience is the one thing Apple relies on in their business model. So I find it unlikely they'd make a previously simple task more difficult for consumers.
Click to expand...

Then I ask why do they make other (far more common) tasks more difficult for consumers?

In reality, Apple does what best suits its interests. Pandering to carriers is part of that.

EssentialParado said:
In regards to your assumption on inconvenience, you're simply jumping to the conclusion a soft SIM would make it inconvenient for users. What if the procedure to switch accounts between phones was as simple as logging in on the new phone? Would that not be considerably faster and preferable? (I know I would prefer it.) But furthermore, it would solve this problem of several different SIM card sizes.
Click to expand...

Apple's earlier proposals suggested that you would have to use iTunes.

I'm being realistic here - just about everything else Apple lets you do with the iPhone is through iTunes.

The more complex the system becomes, the harder it is for people to use.

SIM cards are incredibly simple in my view. You put it in the phone and it works.

You can move a SIM to any other phone that you want to.
 
Long as everyone signs upto it, its fine. I really fail to see how an even smaller sim could shrink the phone tho
 
Crzyrio said:
Yeah but none of them made it out to the consumer or did as well. Can you show me some of these phones you speak off?

As someone mentioned before that i cant find right now.... the current sim card size means that the sim has to sit horizontally. If a smaller one were made, apple or whoever else could implement it in a different way clearing up a fairly large bump inside of the phone. Think about it, outside of the box.

Yeah and phone industry was doing fine before the iPhone too but then the iPhone came and changed it.

Well then those people should stick to phone that don't use it. Soft Sim cards seem pretty likely to be the future. Although i doubt Apple would sell only soft sim iPhone to began but eventually i believe all phone will go into that direction once the formalities are figured out.
Click to expand...

LG Prada, Sony Ericson P800, P900, P910, P990. A lot bigger then the iPhone but all had touch screens, O2 XDA, HTC phones, e-ten glofiish.

You must remember that Symbian UIQ and Windows Mobile have been going FAR longer then Apple's iOS has.

The following phones are thinner then the iPhone 4:

LG Optimus Black
Galaxy S 2
Xperia Arc

And the original iPhone flopped in the UK cause it's specification was crap compared to the competition. The camera for one.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8F190 Safari/6533.18.5)

To people who don't "get the point" of this, what exactly do you know about what's going on in Apple's design labs? What if the amount of space for a small sim clears just the amount of room for a next gen battery with 30% additional capacity? It's a cost/benefit analysis and apple has always had to make changes where the rest of the market has been afraid to because they aren't going to wait another 10 years for everyone else to adopt something new.
 
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