Stop drinking the coolaid.
Nothing will be done by the carrier. We are already one year into this esim only fiasco.
Asian prepaid esim still a problem. Likely won’t change anytime soon.
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iPhone 15 Rumored to Lack SIM Card Tray in France and Likely Other Countries
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Stop drinking the coolaid.
Nothing will be done by the carrier. We are already one year into this esim only fiasco.
Asian prepaid esim still a problem. Likely won’t change anytime soon.
It all depends on your provider - some are quite straightforward (online), others will be forcing you to go to their shops with your ID, etc.
I think Apple removing the sim slot will force the carriers hands to start supporting eSIM more widely.
Definitely in the UK where LycaMobile is the only virtual network currently supporting eSIM. Then you have the big carriers where they will generally only offer eSIM on contracts.
The networks won't like it, but I suspect customers are more likely to move networks than give up their iPhone.
Again 1 year into this stupid Apple game to please the carrier- getting pre-paid esim is still a problem for traveler.
This move only benefit the carrier and 3rd party roaming company.
Nothing has really changed. Try getting prepaid esim in Singapore.
Good luck waiting in line at M1 store for prepaid.
Stupid and greedy
I think the point is that Apple will force a change to happen. A little bit like Apple forcing a change to wireless headphones by removing the 3.5mm jack.
There will be plenty of UK customers who won't though - it's a barrier to ownership that is totally unnecessary.
I don't think it will be a barrier as I suspect we will see much broader eSIM support following the iPhone 15.
How does eSim benefit Apple though?
Other hardware changes to mobile phones I understand:
- Removable batteries are not an option = Easier and cheaper to manufacture the phone + the product is now disposable so users upgrade sooner.
- No Micro SD = Upsell consumers on internal storage options.
- 3.5mm jack removed = Sell consumers wireless earphones/headphones or adaptors.
- Wireless charging = sell consumers charging pads/devices.
- eSIM = consumers have to buy phone contracts from the big network suppliers?
eSIM only gives Apple more space in the device for other things. Even nano-SIMs are gigantic for the functionality that they offer.
eSIM basically makes it difficult for traveler to get cheap local physical sim with local number and unlimited data.
It ties you to pay $0.25 per minute and $5 to $10 data fee per day. Or use expensive 3rd party data roaming such as airalo etc.
Obviously you haven’t seen what apple put in place of sim tray on the 14.
Your comment is full of wrong information
I know what Apple put in place of the iPhone 14 sim tray and I suspect they did that because it was only the USA that got an eSIM only device, which makes having a radically different main board design for a single market likely hard to justify.
Once more/all markets have eSIM only iPhones, the space will be used for something else.
The eSim only iPhone was only released in the USA. Once the market of eSIM only devices becomes larger, networks will be forced into supporting those devices.
It’ll become easier to get a local prepaid esim once more devices are esim only. Networks won’t want to miss out on the potential customer base if they don’t support esims.
Sure, once the Networks provide eSIMs across the range of services. But how long will this take, a year - two maybe? The UK networks won't have any incentive to offer pay-as-you-go eSIMs at the beginning of this transition, especially to their sister companies - they will seize the opportunity to milk the cash cow and only offer the eSIM iPhones on expensive contracts just like they did with the early iPhones.
Forced change with no alternative other than leaving the iPhone is a dumb move. At least with the removal of the 3.5mm jack you could buy a cheap adaptor and keep using your wired buds.
As I said, how does this benefit Apple?
It is likely so they can gain the internal space back for other things as @mrochester has said. I suspect it is also likely a play to give more power back to the networks to sell higher-priced contracts to help them offset the additional costs of the new iPhones.
You wouldn’t get the desired effect if the device continued to have a nano-sim card slot as there’d be no incentive for the networks to start supporting eSIM.
So eSIM only offers advantages to the manufacturers, not the network or the consumer. If eSIM was the future then it would happen, for example: not having to make physical SIMs and post them to consumers would be a cost-saving and yet it hasn’t taken off like that yet. Chicken and egg I guess…..
You do realize that Apple does make loyalty and take % of sales from carrier as well right?
Why wouldn't the carriers just buy the iPhones wholesale from Apple then the service contracts is all profit for the network operator.