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Given the privacy issues of eSIM, I don’t think so. That’s the whole of point of why some countries don’t allow eSIM. But Apple gets a cut of eSIM carrier revenue, so it’s possible they’ll try to force it.

yeap same here and I’m in the U.K., a lot of the MVNO’s do not support e sims, and I’m not about to leave my provider just because they don’t, I’ll just ignore the new iPhone instead. It’s only really the main providers charging more money and fixed term contracts who offer e sims.
 
Physical SIM is such an outdated concept. It is all just data. For everyone whining about traveling - do you really have such a limited imagination to realise how an all-digital solution could easily replace this e-waste nonsense, including travel? Something you could buy online or at any corner-shop, just no stupid physical card needed.
Swap an esim between two phones, then come back and tell me how easy it is? It’s great in theory but the actual experience isn’t there yet. Unfortunately, it doesn’t take imagination to see how this could vastly over-complicate something as simple as swapping a SIM card because all the problems are pretty clear.
 
I’m gonna say no on this one.
SIMCards are too prevalent in a lot of the world today, not to mention The people who still used them in the US, and even if this was true, why would it be restricted to the 15 pro? It’s not a pro feature to not have a SIM card slot.
If there’s a better solution, why would people continue to use SIM cards?
 
Physical SIM is such an outdated concept. It is all just data. For everyone whining about traveling - do you really have such a limited imagination to realise how an all-digital solution could easily replace this e-waste nonsense, including travel? Something you could buy online or at any corner-shop, just no stupid physical card needed.
Do you have such a limited imagination to realise that we could communicate via thoughts only, and completely replace this e-waste nonsense, including phones?

/s

ETA: that all sounds lovely in some imagined, ideal, world - not necessarily working for the one we live in.
 
Speaking of Czech…my daughter did a semester in Prague this year and we encountered an issue…she obviously needed a fully functioning iPhone there, and I was initially figuring she would get a local SIM card when she got there. Except we had just bought her a new 12 in the ATT installment plan, which meant it was locked to ATT. So our only solutions were to get her a “burner” phone which wasn’t really optimal, or pay ATT the extra $100 per month for their international day pass deal. We opted for the latter.

Even if the phone wasn’t locked, I’d be curious to know how this would work with eSIM.

Or, used a third party unlocking provider which would have solved that issue.
 
Swap an esim between two phones, then come back and tell me how easy it is? It’s great in theory but the actual experience isn’t there yet. Unfortunately, it doesn’t take imagination to see how this could vastly over-complicate something as simple as swapping a SIM card because all the problems are pretty clear.
it can probably be done easely enugh in you providers app, probably somthing along the lines of, start app on old phone, click transfer e sim (or simmular). get a qr code on screen, svan that with the new phone and you are good to go
 
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I've yet to have AT&T successfully setup an eSIM in either my iPhone 11 Pro Max or my brand new iPhone 13 Pro Max.
Both gave errors when trying to use eSIM. Odd because the new iPhone 13 Pro Max sort of defaulted to using eSIM during setup but would crap out at the end. Wound up having to use the physical SIM.
 
I've yet to have AT&T successfully setup an eSIM in either my iPhone 11 Pro Max or my brand new iPhone 13 Pro Max.
Both gave errors when trying to use eSIM. Odd because the new iPhone 13 Pro Max sort of defaulted to using eSIM during setup but would crap out at the end. Wound up having to use the physical SIM.
Well US carriers (or more probably an under trained, over worked sales rep at the store) being somewhat incompetent is nothing new
 
my network doesn't support eSims. The major networks do. My network is an MVNO (it operates on one of the larger networks) so it COULD but it doesn't. I would be up for getting rid of the Sim card. i'm sure that space could be put to better use like putting back in the headphone jack (lol joking) or increasing battery or whatever... and also it would cut down on some waste. There's really no real good reason to keep physical cards.

also, if anyone has a chance of forcing networks to adopt new standards/tech then it's Apple. I remember desperately trying to find a store that had Micro Sims in stock after I bought my iPhone 4 lol at that time they weren't so easy to find.
 
it can probably be done easely enugh in you providers app, probably somthing along the lines of, start app on old phone, click transfer e sim (or simmular). get a qr code on screen, svan that with the new phone and you are good to go
Unless your battery is dead or your phone breaks, or your providers app sucks.

Reality falls far short of the feature’s potential.
 
Simcards only matter in Europe. I haven’t used one In the us in ages

Both my wife and I have SIM cards in the US (AT&T and T-Mobile). We are on a prepaid plans so that we don't have to pay when we are not in the US (we keep a Czech SIM too as we lived full time in the Czech Republic for about 12 years).

I doubt most places I have used foreign SIMs are going to support eSIM any time soon (Sudan, Somaliland, Laos, etc)
 
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Simcards only matter in Europe. I haven’t used one In the us in ages
This is complete BS. I live in the US and still use a SIM card. Plenty of smaller carriers here still don’t offer esims, not to mention if you ever travel to any other country. There’s a lot more of the world out there than the US and Europe.
 
People using burner phones would disagree with you. ;)

The irony of the “control” statement is that physical SIM cards allow for more consumer privacy and control.

Far too many uninformed posters here believing the eSIM kool-aid.

eSIM requires personal and payment info upfront with no cash or third party option. And forget about transferring your eSIM to another device without getting permission from your carrier.
 
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Swap an esim between two phones, then come back and tell me how easy it is? It’s great in theory but the actual experience isn’t there yet.
Or try swapping your eSIM from an iPhone you just dropped off for repairs to your old stand-by iPhone (iPhone X?) that doesn't support eSIM.

I suppose Apple upgrading their loaner iPhone to the XR that supports eSIM from the iPhone 8 that doesn't could be an incentive for people to use Apple or an Apple Authorized Service Provider for repairs instead of unauthorized 3rd party service providers, and is also an indicator that Apple may be considering removing physical SIM capability... but Apple really should wait until more providers support eSIM ?‍♂️
 
Unless your battery is dead or your phone breaks, or your providers app sucks.

Reality falls far short of the feature’s potential.
you could probably det a rep in the shop to get the qr code up on a pc or maybe even the pos and scan it from there, physical sims can fail as well.
Besides I thimng a few people in this tread Me incloded, forget that esim is sp far of the general publics radar as to be irelevant,, I made the mistake of losing track of the actual rumor we are discussing here. I doupt appla wil drop the sim tray during the next 2 years (at least not for all models) aftre that point, noy shore if sim tray will be neded for 90+% of iPhone users
 
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I've yet to have AT&T successfully setup an eSIM in either my iPhone 11 Pro Max or my brand new iPhone 13 Pro Max.
Both gave errors when trying to use eSIM. Odd because the new iPhone 13 Pro Max sort of defaulted to using eSIM during setup but would crap out at the end. Wound up having to use the physical SIM.
It's not just you or AT&T. Many people (my friend included) had problems with activating their new iPhone 13 on Verizon using eSIM.
 
my network doesn't support eSims. The major networks do. My network is an MVNO (it operates on one of the larger networks) so it COULD but it doesn't.
No different here in the U.S.

Cricket Wireless (MVNO) is owned by AT&T, but they don't support eSIM while AT&T does.

Metro By T-Mobile (MVNO) is owned by T-Mobile, but they don't support eSIM while T-Mobile does.

This is complete BS. I live in the US and still use a SIM card. Plenty of smaller carriers here still don’t offer esims, not to mention if you ever travel to any other country. There’s a lot more of the world out there than the US and Europe.
It's not just the smaller carriers. Even the MVNO's owned/operated by 2 major U.S. carriers don't support eSIM.

Crazy.
 
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Well it sounds me like they do have eSIM activation online, but I don’t use Verizon and maybe it’s not working now, I don’t know.


Even that link says to call Customer Service, which was not able to provide much (or any) service to me, their customer. ?

Swap an esim between two phones, then come back and tell me how easy it is? It’s great in theory but the actual experience isn’t there yet. Unfortunately, it doesn’t take imagination to see how this could vastly over-complicate something as simple as swapping a SIM card because all the problems are pretty clear.

Exactly. Not easy at all in my experience. My business line that uses a physical SIM swapped over in less than 15 seconds with absolutely no assistance needed from the carrier. I popped the card out of the old phone, inserted it into the new phone, and it was done. Attempting to switch my personal line on the eSIM wasted three hours of my time and it still doesn't even work.

I do realize that the problem here is not Apple; it's Verizon and other carriers. Although they do technically support eSIM, they do not support it WELL and the experience for the customer is currently not pleasant, at least to get it working. Once it's working, it's fine. My concern with the idea of dropping the physical SIM completely is that carriers will say "Ok, no problem, we support eSIM" but continue supporting it at such a crappy level that the experience stays unpleasant.
 
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I've yet to have AT&T successfully setup an eSIM in either my iPhone 11 Pro Max or my brand new iPhone 13 Pro Max.
Both gave errors when trying to use eSIM. Odd because the new iPhone 13 Pro Max sort of defaulted to using eSIM during setup but would crap out at the end. Wound up having to use the physical SIM.
Since I literally went through this last week with switching a physical SIM to eSIM on AT&T, I would suggest making sure you have a data connection (WiFi) when you’re activating. If you did use Wifi then I’m fresh out of ideas.

This was not immediately obvious to me and the salesperson didn’t do this first because he didn’t know, so we got it activated at the 3rd try after we put it on the store‘s WiFi. This seems to be the Achilles Heel of eSIM, that you need some data connection just to activate in the first place, but SIM does not, it just works. But the future is supposed to be to sign into an app and enable an eSIM right there for existing service. I did this on my iPad with T-mobile though, actually signed up for service through the system Settings. Hopefully that’s where things are headed, easy sign in and obtain service. Reality isn’t quite up to that standard yet though, heck the same cellular sign up isn’t on the iPhone but it’s on the iPad, presumably because the iPad is data-only.

Oh yeah, I also remembered that I used eSIM with my iPad about a year ago on a trip that made the iPad roam to another carrier apparently, but it couldn’t actually connect to the roaming partner, why I don’t know. It might not be eSIM related, just regular data roaming issues.
 
True, sim card is so massive that it basically takes half of the internal space.
When Apple goes to extreme lengths to maximize battery and minimize space taken up by components like the screen I’d say that relatively speaking the SIM card holder does take up a surprising amount of volume.
 
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