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Apple's New Cellular iPad Air and iPad Pro Models Are eSIM Only
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I use cheap physical sim cards outside of the US so no more Iphone, my 13 is the last
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
In this case, "ripping the band-aid off" forces cellular choices only to those who already support eSIM... which, interestingly enough, seems to be those who charge MORE for service. Hooray! Rip off that bandaid to make more profitable cell service providers even more money. I wonder if any of it flows back to Apple for "ripping"? 💰💰💰
In this case, the switch involved cutting quality of sound. There's still a DAC inside every iDevice sold today because sound still must be converted to analog so our ears can hear it. Digital audio is not coming out of those speaker holes.
So this choice simply severed a dirt-cheap direct connection to that DAC... presumably superior to the DAC in cheap dongles for those still wanting to use wired connections. A few years later, Apple rolls out spatial audio lossless which, of course, can't be fully heard in inferior Bluetooth because there's not enough bandwidth for it. Where would there be enough bandwidth? In the headphone jack connection that was jettisoned.
But boy did that decision make Apple a WHOLE lot of very profitable accessory money in AirPods! Shareholders rejoice! 💰💰💰
And this "logic" proves nothing. People will accept some bad features/choices if the overall is most desired. Personally, to this day, I 100% abhor the headphone jack decision in iPad but bought one anyway... not in any way to endorse the inferior-but-very-profitable push for Bluetooth... but because I preferred "the rest" more than embracing some alternative. Making any one feature worse doesn't necessarily kill purchases but it can make customers less happy with the overall "whole" purchase. This "voting" through buying doesn't necessarily prove any particular decision was the right one... only that the overall is appealing enough to make the market swallow some negative choices/moves. The catch is that there is a limit to how far that can go. At some point, a small detail choice proves to be the infamous straw.
As buyers of these new iPads travel and then bump into situations where they used to be able to pick up some cheap cellular service for short visits to other countries but will now have to pay more because they have no SIM slot, I suspect customer satisfaction with this decision will not be favorable. They may buy this iPad anyway... but for "the rest"... NOT to endorse this choice. They may be mostly happy with the "whole" new iPad but not happy about this one change.
Will this "ripping" spur on the cheaper providers to embrace eSIM? TBD. In the meantime, the pricier ones will be the "only shops in town." Hooray! How wonderful for us consumers!
I don’t know about ripping band aids off necessarily…
But Apple are definitely doing some ripping off
But Apple are definitely doing some ripping off
For what it's worth, I'm not saying I'm for or against any of these choices. But the history of technology is one where "obsolete" stuff gets obsoleted. Yes, you can argue there's nothing obsolete in the physical SIM, but Apple disagrees and that's just how it's going to be.
Imagine it's 1998 (ancient times I know), the iMac was just announced, Macrumors forums are loaded up with calls of "no Floppy, USB only, very consumer hostile move! I need those things built in! I can't adapt! Adapters suck! Floppy forever!"
eSIM or death! <- the new Apple motto, carriers will have to adapt or face having loads of customers moving to another carrier that has eSIM.
Physical SIM vs eSIM is like wanting to keep using floppy discs, or SCSI, or a spinning HDD.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
I very much understand those points. However, "obsolete" used to be about replacing it with "better."
The headphone jack hit audio in the most central of places: quality. Bluetooth steps down quality for "no wires" convenience. The spin at the time was "need the space" but there's abundant space in iPads... and Macs still have the jack and Apple even improved the jack in Macs since they went Bluetooth. Anyone focused on quality of sound knows wired is superior to wireless. If Bluetooth (or some alternative) overcomes that AND offers "no wires", then we can all swallow that pill more readily. Instead it was a few steps back (on quality of sound) for convenience.
And $20 Apple buds became $100-$200 buds or $500 headphones. Shareholders rejoice! 💰💰💰
The same with SIM vs. eSIM. Is eSIM better for consumers? Immediately? No. Why? Because the eSIM providers generally cost MORE than the SIM providers. So once again, the customers are going to have to pay up more for- in this case- only the same quality of experience. If eSIM was well in play with the discounters/MVNO players so that consumer wallets were largely unaffected in the SIM vs. eSIM decision, bring on eSIM (for a consumer win too). Until then, there's no real gain for consumers here. In fact, they take a hit in the wallet... while hoping maybe the discounters will "modernize."
Some- what now- about EIGHT years after the bluetooth move, I'm still waiting for bluetooth ubiquity. I'm still looking for airlines to offer bluetooth audio connections (they all still have that headphone jack). And, of course, I'm looking for bluetooth to "catch up" with the quality of sound offered in wired 8 or even 20+ years ago.
Obsolete deprecation used to be about delivering "better." Now it seems to be about "more profitable" because- presumably- the customers will "just pay anyway." So far, that has worked. Do customers just keep opting to roll with whatever is decided for them? TBD.
On a personal note: 5 years ago, I was pretty much Apple everything and could only think Apple options when buying new tech that Apple made. Recently my AirPod Pros conked and I've seen rumors of APP4s so I opted to see if I could bridge the gap with highly-rated but $20 cheapies from Amazon. Now that I've been using them for a couple of months, I notice no difference in sound quality or microphone quality vs. APP2. $20 vs. $169 or so? I'm no longer interested at all in APP4s. Apple lost me on that (easy) sale.
My aging MBpro needs to be replaced. 5 years ago, that could only be another MB. However, with the insanity of "company store" pricing on RAM & SSD, I'm very seriously considering going PC laptop after 20+ years of only MBs. I'd be taking on a number of less desirables with PC but lately it would be pitting one set of less desirables (like insane RAM & SSD upgrade pricing) vs. another. Instead of "pick the better choice" it seems to be "pick the least worst choice." If that's the favored company for most of us around here, pay baby pay because now there's only ONE store for RAM & SSD... and you must buy all you'll ever need up front because there's no PC-like flexibility to adapt as needs evolve over time.
Now, I'm just one consumer... so who cares? But part of the driver of 5 years ago vs. now is years ago & before, there was abundant goodwill in the halo... that Apple made decisions of "better", "smarter", "improvement." There was always an Apple premium but the premium tangibly bought BETTER. Now it feels like the very first consideration is maximize profit per unit sold because "they'll just buy anyway." My dollars have begun trickling AWAY from Apple. I suspect I'm not the only one.
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The issue is, I have a physical SIM I’m sharing between several tablets. If one of them is eSIM while the others are still physical and don’t support eSIM, I can’t do that anymore.
I suspect there are a growing number of us in that camp. I've been all in on Apple for nearly thirty years. But my most recent phone purchase wasn't an iPhone, and my most recent tablet purchase wasn't an iPad. Unlikely I'll replace my Mac with another. Used to be able to justify the price premium. Can't anymore.
It’s only the future because it puts more control back in the hands of the network cartel.
I really wonder how may eSIM images can be stored on the new iPad Air and Pro models. I believe on the current iPhione models, you can have up to eight eSIM codes stored on your phone.
That's fine, you can definitely prioritize what you want in your devices. IMO it's not strictly profit and it's not strictly whether one thing is "technically" better than another, it's user experience (and yes, user experience can cut both ways, ie if wireless is worse than wired, if eSIM is harder to use than physical SIM, or unavailable).
As far as I can see, Apple just pushes ahead on these things because it's about vision, it's about courage! The courage to cut the wires! To free us all from tyranny of plugging things in! Of losing your phone and having to get another physical SIM card from a store instead of downloading an eSIM!
If the carriers don't support this vision, they must die!
You have chosen, death! Just kidding, keep the old iPads or switch to another tablet if you must.
I prefer eSIM to physical SIM. It's safer and no worries about the SIM getting damaged, lost, or stolen.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
I don't know about tyranny & courage.
I'm more focused on value and value perception... as a consumer... and long-term Apple consumer at that. The "premium" used to be easier to rationalize. Tags like those don't do a thing for me. I need to see there's more value for the money paid and that seems less clear (to me) these days.
No, that's not saying there's NO value- I still have and use Apple stuff. I'm saying the differences are no longer so tangible to me to justify the ever-fattening Apple Inc. margin. These cheapie buds seemed doomed as I ordered them: how could $20 buds be remotely competitive with $169+ APPs? 2 months later, I'm probably down to 5% on willingly paying EIGHT times more (or more???) for APP4s when they are released.
For the price of only the 8TB SSD upgrade in Macs (sans Mac & RAM- just the SSD alone), I picked up an entire gaming PC with 10TB of fast SSD and 32GB of RAM with money left over. It sits next to Mac Studio and is increasingly getting the heavier lifting stuff because Power generally means "faster" than PPW... and I don't notice any difference in the monthly electric bill.
After 20 years of pretty much only Apple monitors, I look at what I'm typing on a Dell Ultrawide 5K2K. It cost about the same as ASD but there was no way I was going to pay the iMac 27" price for only the iMac 27" monitor alone (Mac + Keyboard + Mouse jettisoned). macOS looks just as good on this bigger screen and it has multiple inputs for the PC and a full hub with many useful ports in 2024 instead of only one port type.
And now I'm needing a laptop to replace my second or third MBpro. It's been only Mac laptops since the Powerbook days. And I'm seriously considering going PC there too. I do not favor Windows over macOS but I do much appreciate greater consumer value... especially in the commodities of RAM & SSD pricing... and easy flexibility to evolve if at some point in the future, I need maybe TWICE as much RAM and/or more internal storage. PC: just upgrade it for cheap and carry on. Mac? Throw out the entire computer and replace it with another.
If I end up buying a PC laptop, that would flip me from 50:50 to 2/3rds PC (2 primary use PCs and 1 Mac). 5+ years ago it was all Apple. If I needed Windows for anything, bootcamp covered that base on a Mac (and no, ARM Windows is not full Windows). Again, I'm just one guy: so who cares?.. unless I'm not actually just one guy with these kinds of thoughts... and actual buying action evolution AWAY from Apple.
I'm more focused on value and value perception... as a consumer... and long-term Apple consumer at that. The "premium" used to be easier to rationalize. Tags like those don't do a thing for me. I need to see there's more value for the money paid and that seems less clear (to me) these days.
No, that's not saying there's NO value- I still have and use Apple stuff. I'm saying the differences are no longer so tangible to me to justify the ever-fattening Apple Inc. margin. These cheapie buds seemed doomed as I ordered them: how could $20 buds be remotely competitive with $169+ APPs? 2 months later, I'm probably down to 5% on willingly paying EIGHT times more (or more???) for APP4s when they are released.
For the price of only the 8TB SSD upgrade in Macs (sans Mac & RAM- just the SSD alone), I picked up an entire gaming PC with 10TB of fast SSD and 32GB of RAM with money left over. It sits next to Mac Studio and is increasingly getting the heavier lifting stuff because Power generally means "faster" than PPW... and I don't notice any difference in the monthly electric bill.
After 20 years of pretty much only Apple monitors, I look at what I'm typing on a Dell Ultrawide 5K2K. It cost about the same as ASD but there was no way I was going to pay the iMac 27" price for only the iMac 27" monitor alone (Mac + Keyboard + Mouse jettisoned). macOS looks just as good on this bigger screen and it has multiple inputs for the PC and a full hub with many useful ports in 2024 instead of only one port type.
And now I'm needing a laptop to replace my second or third MBpro. It's been only Mac laptops since the Powerbook days. And I'm seriously considering going PC there too. I do not favor Windows over macOS but I do much appreciate greater consumer value... especially in the commodities of RAM & SSD pricing... and easy flexibility to evolve if at some point in the future, I need maybe TWICE as much RAM and/or more internal storage. PC: just upgrade it for cheap and carry on. Mac? Throw out the entire computer and replace it with another.
If I end up buying a PC laptop, that would flip me from 50:50 to 2/3rds PC (2 primary use PCs and 1 Mac). 5+ years ago it was all Apple. If I needed Windows for anything, bootcamp covered that base on a Mac (and no, ARM Windows is not full Windows). Again, I'm just one guy: so who cares?.. unless I'm not actually just one guy with these kinds of thoughts... and actual buying action evolution AWAY from Apple.
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Anecdotal evidence but here’s why I hate this.
I have an M1 iPad Pro 12.9”. When I got it at the AT&T Store it kept nagging me to set up eSIM. Except it never worked. Always got an error message. No idea why. Finally the AT&T Store techs gave up in frustration and installed a physical SIM card. Works like a champ. (The iPad keeps trying to convert the SIM card to an eSIM. Still errors every time.)
Last Fall I went to the Cook Islands, a small island chain in the South Pacific. My iPhone 14 Pro Max has no SIM card slot. Because of my problems with the iPad eSIM, I did not want to risk having only one phone that only had an eSIM if it didn’t work. Also, the phone was still carrier locked to AT&T.
So I bought an unlocked Amazon Refurbished iPhone SE (2020). Got to Rarotonga, went in to the Vodaphone office and bought an eSIM. Could not get it to activate on either the iPhone 14 Pro Max or the iPhone SE. Asked for a refund on the eSIM, bought a physical SIM card instead, slapped it into the iPhone SE and I was good to go.
Removing backup options is never a good thing. As my Dad always taught me, “Better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it”.
I have an M1 iPad Pro 12.9”. When I got it at the AT&T Store it kept nagging me to set up eSIM. Except it never worked. Always got an error message. No idea why. Finally the AT&T Store techs gave up in frustration and installed a physical SIM card. Works like a champ. (The iPad keeps trying to convert the SIM card to an eSIM. Still errors every time.)
Last Fall I went to the Cook Islands, a small island chain in the South Pacific. My iPhone 14 Pro Max has no SIM card slot. Because of my problems with the iPad eSIM, I did not want to risk having only one phone that only had an eSIM if it didn’t work. Also, the phone was still carrier locked to AT&T.
So I bought an unlocked Amazon Refurbished iPhone SE (2020). Got to Rarotonga, went in to the Vodaphone office and bought an eSIM. Could not get it to activate on either the iPhone 14 Pro Max or the iPhone SE. Asked for a refund on the eSIM, bought a physical SIM card instead, slapped it into the iPhone SE and I was good to go.
Removing backup options is never a good thing. As my Dad always taught me, “Better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it”.
It's the trial by fire stage of eSIM's existence. Bugs bugs bugs! I first activated an eSIM in the AT&T store and the associate and I did everything right, but I didn't know you need wifi on and connected to activate an eSIM (store's slow and crappy wifi is good enough), and the associate didn't know. Sat around for a few minutes like an idiot just waiting for it to activate. Finally dawned on me, ah you need wifi! Worked instantly once connected to wifi. Since then no issues due to eSIM that I could think of.
Benefits to eSIM: fringe. Bugs: plenty! It is what it is, we need some ancient Greek stoic philosophers in here to say "life is full of pain then you die, same for eSIM activation".
Goodbye cellular. You are ripped off in the UK for eSim plans vs those available with a physical card. The majority of networks don’t offer it at all.
You’re not alone … not at all
I know several people who share similar stories to you and myself about previously being all Apple and never even thinking about other stuff and it just keeps whittling away over time.
Tim Cook is driving this thing off the cliff eventually if he’s allowed to continue on like this.
Everything can “seem fine” until it very rapidly is not at all fine
Not in Australia , they have SIM card trays, as it's ILLEGAL to have e-sims here in that sort of device ! its law !
Apple at its "Let Loose" event today announced new iPad Pro and iPad Air models, and there are smaller changes compared to the previous generation devices that did not get mentioned during the event but are worth knowing about.
One of the differences worth noting is the lack of a physical SIM card slot. On the previous generation models, the cellular versions of both the iPad Air and the iPad Pro included a physical SIM card slot. In the new devices, that's no longer the case. All cellular models now support eSIM only.
It's a small but crucial detail for anyone looking to upgrade their iPad while sticking with their current cellular plan. Apple has not divulged the reason why it chose to remove the physical SIM slot, but it could have been a design decision related to making the devices slimmer, or a necessity to keep them slim, given all of the devices' hardware upgrades.
Either way, the change brings parity to Apple's latest iPad models and its iPhone, which dropped the physical SIM slot in 2022 with the launch of the iPhone 14.
Article Link: Apple's New Cellular iPad Air and iPad Pro Models Are eSIM Only
What the heck are you doing with your Sim? Years of swapping Sims between devices weekly and often daily, probably thousands of times; not one problem or worry. I currently use one phone Sim between 3 phones (iPhone 13 mini, Samsung S23, and Pixel 8), and one tablet Sim between 3 tablets ( iPad Air 5 Gen, iPad mini 6, and Samsung S9 5G).
Tom