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Sketchy Rumor Claims iPhone 15 Pro Won't Have Physical SIM Card Slot
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True, this is a limitation. Fortunately, free WiFi is common nowadays at airports and malls.
But it wasn’t portable, and the whole phone was under the carrier’s control.
Do you remember the 3rd gen iPod Shuffle? Apple ended up backtracking and moved back to the 2nd gen design.
If Jonny Ive were still around, then I can see Apple doing it though.
That sounds insanely inconvenient. I live in Europe and for travel I use my own sim. Within Europe, prices are normalized and many carriers have good plans for travel abroad as well.
They might do this in the USA and Europe, where people are anyway stuck and tied to their providers.
There is no way in hell it's going to happen in Asia and other places where people often swap SIM cards
I am a tech enthusiast, so with the XS I decided to ditch the "old tech" SIM card and use an eSim for my primary number, and use the SIM tray for whatever other SIM cards I want - I travel around Asia, nothing better than popping a new SIM in the phone at the airport and have fast cheap data available all times.
What I learned is that eSIM is worse in every way than SIM card.
For example, you can't transfer it to another phone - you have to ask your provider for permission, and for that you have to go to their office.
This is absolute nonsense.
WIth a SIM card, I just pop it into the new phone, done.
Since I currently can't go back to that country I am actually stuck with my iPhone XS since the eSim won't transfer out.
So this technology, rather than being an improvement, actually ties you more to the providers, and gives them more control.
BTW who here knew that there's iPhone 11, 12, and 13 pro models with dual SIM? In Asia, these fit one SIM card on either side of the SIM tray. Very cool, and takes up almost no space.
There is no way in hell it's going to happen in Asia and other places where people often swap SIM cards
I am a tech enthusiast, so with the XS I decided to ditch the "old tech" SIM card and use an eSim for my primary number, and use the SIM tray for whatever other SIM cards I want - I travel around Asia, nothing better than popping a new SIM in the phone at the airport and have fast cheap data available all times.
What I learned is that eSIM is worse in every way than SIM card.
For example, you can't transfer it to another phone - you have to ask your provider for permission, and for that you have to go to their office.
This is absolute nonsense.
WIth a SIM card, I just pop it into the new phone, done.
Since I currently can't go back to that country I am actually stuck with my iPhone XS since the eSim won't transfer out.
So this technology, rather than being an improvement, actually ties you more to the providers, and gives them more control.
BTW who here knew that there's iPhone 11, 12, and 13 pro models with dual SIM? In Asia, these fit one SIM card on either side of the SIM tray. Very cool, and takes up almost no space.
It amazes me how many people think it's a good idea to be stuck with a single provider.
Open market - heard of it? Competition between providers is the only reason Europe has cheap data.
If they manage to eSim the phones and monopolize data plans, look at Canadian prices for phone plans - or USA for that matter. US users of course don't mind eSim cards, since they don't leave the USA, and they have no choice in the USA.
Because majority of carriers around the world don’t support eSIM. How can you expect people to use something that are not being offered by the service providers?
Wait, are you implying that only poor countries not adopting eSIM? eSIM has nothing to do with the status if the country. Take Singapore, richest country in SE Asia, more expensive than Tokyo, has 3 Apple stores. Yet the top 2 carriers there don’t even support eSIM on iPhones.
You can have more than one eSIM profile on an iPhone. But you can only use one at a time.
It takes literally three seconds to swap eSIM profiles on an iPhone. You MAY be able to swap SIM cards in three seconds IF you don’t use a case AND you have a tool to open the tray. With eSIM, you don’t have to worry about keeping track of physical SIM cards as you jetset between countries.
So you can get an iPhone 15 for countries /networks that use eSIM and keep an iPhone 14 for countries/networks that don‘t support it. By the time the iPhone 17 roles around all cellular carriers will support it.
Essentially, yeah, the bottleneck will be the carriers. And I don’t think Apple wanted that yet, so I doubt this rumor is valid.
If Apple decided to become a virtual international carrier and provide cellular plans themselves, then they would definitely nix the SIM slot.
It is the other way around. The lazy/slow carriers will limit their market. No carrier can stay relevant and competitive if they can't support THE iPhone. If Apple finally pulls the plug, eSIM will become the standard extremely quickly.
Anyone who travels knows that this is a horrible idea. It's much easier to carry SIMs inside the phone than cards to scan the SIMs.
I wonder how Apple will get away with this in China. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT209086
I wonder how Apple will get away with this in China. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT209086
I am pretty sure it doesn't need to be a qr-code: apps can upload the eSIM directly to the OS.
My biggest complaint about eSIMs is that, if you need to change phone, you must first disable it on the old phone, which can be problematic if the old device is completely broken.
Also I don't like the fact the SIM needs an internet connection to be initialised.
You dont have to stick with single provider. But the prices are more less the same in Europe. I pay around 40 USD for everything unlimited no matter which country (Norway, Sweden, Poland) and that is as cheap as it gets so there is no reason to switch really.
Just switched to eSIM on one of my lines, so NO, it's not even close. Don't spread false info.
Apple is not the majority in many countries. Take my country. The top 3 carriers don't even support VoLTE on iPhones (let alone eSIM). Apple might have some say in the US and some western European countries, but it has to follow the market in others. Take China. Apple even makes special iPhones with dual physical SIM slots for China/HK.
40 USD is insanely expensive in Poland where you normally get 30GB+unlimited everything for 7-8 USD.
No I’m not but it was easier to say that so people got the point. I’ve not been to Singapore but that does sound like the carrier lacking especially if they are top 2.
but you’re right even rich countries do have their problems
Feels like a lot of the panic here is overblown. I’m sure if Apple is truly contemplating this, then they also know carriers will support this. A lot can happen in 2 years and a full migration to all carriers supporting eSIM is certainly possible by then.
I moved my iPhone 12 Pro from a physical SIM to eSIM on T-Mobile last year via a web chat with customer service. The initial setup just required someone competent at the carrier to set it up. As eSIM becomes the dominant technology, carriers will have their people trained in the implementation.
As far as the transfer to another phone goes, when I did the full data transfer (not from an iCloud partial backup) from my iPhone 12 Pro to my 13 mini, I was asked if I wanted to move my eSIM as part of the process. I clicked yes and my carrier and plan info were moved to the new phone. Just like moving the SIM card manually. No carrier intervention or activation was necessary.
If I look in my carrier settings now, I see it’s possible to turn off my current plan (similar to removing my SIM card but keeping the information stored in my phone). I also see it’s possible to add more plans (similar to having other SIMs with me, just not in physical form). So “swapping” SIMs would be just a matter of turning one plan off and another on. Curious if anyone does that now? This would definitely be easier than swapping between several different SIMs physically as I have done before on the plane before landing in a new country.
To me it seems like the ideal setup would be an iPhone with 2 eSIMS and the ability to store several eSIM profiles and have 2 active at any given time.
The fact that T-Mobile gives me global roaming now has pretty much covered what I used to use extra local SIMs for, but I can understand it if you will be somewhere for a longer period of time and/or require high speed data access.
I moved my iPhone 12 Pro from a physical SIM to eSIM on T-Mobile last year via a web chat with customer service. The initial setup just required someone competent at the carrier to set it up. As eSIM becomes the dominant technology, carriers will have their people trained in the implementation.
As far as the transfer to another phone goes, when I did the full data transfer (not from an iCloud partial backup) from my iPhone 12 Pro to my 13 mini, I was asked if I wanted to move my eSIM as part of the process. I clicked yes and my carrier and plan info were moved to the new phone. Just like moving the SIM card manually. No carrier intervention or activation was necessary.
If I look in my carrier settings now, I see it’s possible to turn off my current plan (similar to removing my SIM card but keeping the information stored in my phone). I also see it’s possible to add more plans (similar to having other SIMs with me, just not in physical form). So “swapping” SIMs would be just a matter of turning one plan off and another on. Curious if anyone does that now? This would definitely be easier than swapping between several different SIMs physically as I have done before on the plane before landing in a new country.
To me it seems like the ideal setup would be an iPhone with 2 eSIMS and the ability to store several eSIM profiles and have 2 active at any given time.
The fact that T-Mobile gives me global roaming now has pretty much covered what I used to use extra local SIMs for, but I can understand it if you will be somewhere for a longer period of time and/or require high speed data access.
Almost:
- first gen looked like the stick of gum with controls.
- second gen was a smaller rectangle but retained the controls
- third gen went back to the gum pack shape but they removed the controls and expected people to use the minimal controls on the headphones.
- fourth gen went back to an even smaller square shape and brought back the controls.
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Absolutely stupid. I've been known to use three different phones in the same day, just by swapping out SIM cards. Switch carriers? Pop out a SIM, pop in a new one. No calls to support, no futzing about on a website, just paperclip it and done.
How about instead getting rid of the idiotic eSIM and putting in a dual physical SIM tray instead?
How about instead getting rid of the idiotic eSIM and putting in a dual physical SIM tray instead?
sorry I couldn't understand your reply do the typos , looks like there is a problem with your keyboard