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SIMs give the illusion of freedom, they are old, and they stink

Something we already have today and with the added benefits of SIM swapping! :rolleyes:

No way. A SIM card is like a leash. Sure you can change phones, but it keeps you from straying away from the carrier. As long as you pay them monthly they are satisfied. It doesn't matter to them if you use the phone they initially gave you.

Apple would be giving the consumer the choice of a carrier.

This is beneficial to the consumer. PERIOD.

The transferring of SIM cards between cell phones issue is silly. Imagine in the near future all phones are SIM-less and unlocked and allow you to choose your own carrier. You could theoretically have many phones on the same number/account. They would all share the same bandwidth/"minutes"/cell-phone bill. Not unlike a traditional land-line phone setup where you have multiple cordless handsets around the house. If one handset's battery dies, you use the other one.

Your "backup" phone will have the same number/account so it wouldn't matter if your primary phone had a problem.

SIM/USIM memory is very limited so who even bothers to save contacts on them anymore? Sync with your computer like normal people.

You could have 2 or 3 or 4 or 10 phones with the same number/account. You could change carriers whenever you like and without buying a $30 piece of branded plastic forcing you to commit to a specific carrier.

For example, I have several computers("cell phones") wirelessly accessing the internet("cell-phone network") using the same internet provider("carrier"). If one computer("cell phone") breaks, I can use another computer("cell phone") instantly. I do not have to transfer a "SIM" from one computer("cell phone") to the next.

I hope this is where the future is headed. It would shatter the industry but the industry needs to be shattered. Cell phone companies need to stop advertising and start upgrading. North America is falling way too far behind in terms of coverage, price and network speed.

EDIT: Hopefully sometime soon, if you don't have your phone handy you could borrow a friends phone and "login" with your password to your own cell phone account! SIMs are ancient!
 
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Science vs. 'Appl'ication

No way. A SIM card is like a leash. Sure you can change phones, but it keeps you from straying away from the carrier. As long as you pay them monthly they are satisfied. It doesn't matter to them if you use the phone they initially gave you.

Apple would be giving the consumer the choice of a carrier.

This is beneficial to the consumer. PERIOD.

The transferring of SIM cards between cell phones issue is silly. !

I have thousands of dollars worth of Apple hardware Mac and iOS, but I can see the forest and the trees. You are confusing what can be done with this proposed tech versus the likely application.

We will see if you are correct with your usage assertions when 'iPad 2' arrives with it.

This technology is here to help the ever efficient :apple: company deal with regions where they have carrier competition and they don't want to inventory iPhone and iPads with the SIMS for various telcos. So why not have a software solution? It is a business tool, not consumer benefit.

If it was about customer empowerment T-mobile USA would already have iPhone and iPads since that network is closer to AT&T's network than Verizon or Sprint. Apple makes profit sharing arrangements with your subscriptions or they wouldn't care where you "plug in" at all.

So unless Apple starts offering unlocking 2 year old iPhones and provides a consistent market of unlocked new iPhones (currently SIM based) to prove customer empowerment - I would suggest your benevolent usage of this SIMless technology is a gentleman's dream.
 
You could have 2 or 3 or 4 or 10 phones with the same number/account. You could change carriers whenever you like and without buying a $30 piece of branded plastic forcing you to commit to a specific carrier.


Main part of this quote I wanted to attack right here because most of your post was classic Apple rules argument.

Carriers are not going to want to have that happen nor will they let that happen. Reason is the towers can only handle a limited number of phones active phones on them at one time. Active in this case is in standby mode waiting for a call or a text.
Plus with multitiple phones how do they address things like text messages being delievered or not. To the carrier they hold onto the text message until they receive notification from the phone it has been delivered after that they deleted it. With multiple phones that can get messed up. On top of that you now have to deal with the tower dealing wiht 2-3 times as many phones as before going full power mode taking even more limited bandwith to delivered any message. A single income call is going to suck up 2-3 channels while waiting to be picked up. After that yes it will drop to one but before hand 2-3 channels are going in use.

Do not try the argument that people will just not turn on old phones. That is a load of crap. More people than not will leave old phones power on and hook up to a charger or in a car turned on instead of powering them off.

It messed up the modeling system the carriers used for towers because now per line you have to deal with 2-3 phones. Instead 1 line = 1 phone.
 
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