Other The world isn’t ready for eSIM only phones…

[Novius89]

I am ready for a simless phone. As I was ready for the jack to go, I am already ready for years to say bye to a connector. Since Apple has wireless charging I never charged with a cable since my iPhone 8.

I only charged that one with a cable when I used a power bank. Since MagSafe chargers are a thing I used a cable for my 12 mini.

I used the connector for the mini with the backbone controller but I sold that thing because it was stupid it could only be used without a case.

 

[Shh]

It's Apple. Everyone will copy them soon.

 

[Beatrix Kiddo]

Physical SIM tray is useful for non-travelers, too. If the phone breaks, out of battery w/o a charger, needs a software restore.

Or someone else I know who isn’t tech savvy breaks their phone and I provide a loaner iPhone or Android phone until they get theirs fixed.

Yeah. Losing the SIM slot is a complete bummer for me. Every time I’ve used eSIM, it’s been a hassle and I needed a new QR code from the carrier.

The only thing eSIM has made convenient are free trials through different apps. But you need an unlocked phone for those.

Can you imagine all the people buying these over the holiday don’t like the color and exchange their phone? Do not have any faith in US carriers handling eSIM demand.

The point is NOW the carriers are pushed to make it easier to switch e sims

 

[BestMate]

I chose to move to an eSIM with my UK provider EE. It couldn't have been simpler. Click a button in their app while on WiFi, press a button which installed the eSIM, simultaneously the SIM card died and could be removed, then carry on with life.

Exactly the same process for me, it couldn't of been any simpler.
Do you know how the process works for upgrades?, IP 13Pro Max at the minute and hopefully IP 14Pro Max on Friday.
Do i need to keep hold of my old phone, ideally I'd like to sell that over the next few days but don't want to if it will cause me problems when trying to set up my new phone.

 

[Joseph C]

I think like with any time Apple does something big/takes something away there's an initial transition period but it usually doesn't take long. In the case of iPhones without SIM cards, especially since it's starting in the USA, I predict within a matter of mere months the industry will catch up VERY fast and by next year it'll be as easy as it is now to have the same outcomes as you have with a sim slot.

 

[GoodOne]

Sure it is.

Just use Gigsky, Truphone or any other provider to get an eSIM which can be used globally just fine. I've been using Gigsky since the XS came out and it works just great.

 

[Mikeske]

To me the sim was always a bandaid for the cell companies. I mean they had everyone trapped in the little piece of plastic and it annoyed me. I paid for the device and with eSim a person can now hop from one carrier to the other if the phone is kept unlocked.

I always paid full ticket for my iPhones and will always do that as I want to keep the phone I buy unlocked phones and I get royally annoyed at the cell companies that lock my unlocked phone as I never go for the contracts

 

[ryanmp]

A quick search tells me there are plenty of options out there.

10 Best eSim Plans for International Travel ~ price [$3.34 - $59.99]

Price [$3.34 - $59.99] ~ 10 Best eSim Plans for International Travel 2023 Airalo, eSIM+, Flexiroam, Gigsky, Knowroaming eSIM, Nomad, RedteaGo, Surfroam, Truphone & Yesim.

www.sopicky.com

People need to stop quoting this as examples of how eSIMs can replace physical SIMs.

These are data only eSIM options. They do not give you access to a local phone number in countries when travelling.

These services certainly have their place, but will not meet the needs of many international travellers.

 

[Dovahkiing]

People need to stop quoting this as examples of how eSIMs can replace physical SIMs.

These are data only eSIM options. They do not give you access to a local phone number in countries when travelling.

These services certainly have their place, but will not meet the needs of many international travellers.

I mean - for people that do a lot of international traveling, they can just buy an iPhone for cash in another country in their next trip. This really only seems to inconvenience the people who

A. Live in NA and who want to upgrade *immediately*, &

B. Travel internationally with some regularity

Just wait and upgrade on your next trip.

 

[Sheepish-Lord]

I mean - for people that do a lot of international traveling, they can just buy an iPhone for cash in another country in their next trip. This really only seems to inconvenience the people who

A. Live in NA and who want to upgrade *immediately*, &

B. Travel internationally with some regularity

Just wait and upgrade on your next trip.

Have you not seen the insane prices this year for non US phones?

 

[racoop]

I work in Africa several months per year, and an eSIM is a non-starter. Most of the countries I work in are pretty quick to upgrade to new technologies so I suspect in a few years, they will be ready for eSIMS.

Blows my mind that my Orange data/cell account in Burkina Faso is about 90% less expensive and works better than ATT here in the US. I just switch SIMS before landing and go.

 

[ryanmp]

I mean - for people that do a lot of international traveling, they can just buy an iPhone for cash in another country in their next trip. This really only seems to inconvenience the people who

A. Live in NA and who want to upgrade *immediately*, &

B. Travel internationally with some regularity

Just wait and upgrade on your next trip.

Haha what a great solution. Buy a more expensive phone in another country, potentially lacking certain cellular bands, and with potential warranty issues back at home.

Honestly Apple just should have offered a unlocked version with physical SIM tray or maybe offered their own “Apple SIM”.

 

[Fred Zed]

. I don't think any PAYG connection is available via eSIM in either the UK or South Africa which are the two countries I care about.

^^ This.

Currently all the eSim options are for pay monthly in the UK.

 

[Fred Zed]

It would be possible to cobble together a somewhat inelegant solution for US residents travelling overseas. There are quite a few apps such as Airalo (https://www.airalo.com/ and on the App store here - https://apps.apple.com/us/app/airalo-esim-phone-internet/id1475911720) offering eSIMs to give world wide data connectivity. The data isn't particularly cheap but for relatively short trips possibly a solution on its own as long as you only make voice connections via FaceTime, WhatsApp or anything else that goes over data and you don't need to be able to receive SMS messages on your international number because as a data-only eSIM there won't be a number to send messages to anyway. But even that could be got around by also signing up to a rolling (monthly) VOIP number in the country you are visiting and running the VOIP client on your phone (I did say it was somewhat inelegant!).

Even if this move in the US is a wakeup call for carriers around the world 12 months is a long time for US travellers to have this problem. If Apple did care about that market I wonder whether it could create some sort of unified service where it offered a data eSIM similar to Airalo coupled with a virtual VOIP number in a decent number of countries around the world and all integrated together such that when overseas a traveller could have calls to their overseas VOIP number forwarded as an incoming FaceTime audio call and SMS texts forwarded to iMessage. I guess that if Apple was going to do that it would have done so already.

In my view that would have been a decent thing to do to ease the pain of US travellers and in the mean time be an extra revenue stream for Apple since the data and VOIP number would cost money. Some travellers might even prefer that as a long term solution since if it could all be set up online for any country you are about to visit before departure and you are instantly allocated a virtual number in that country and you don't need to install and VOIP client software because it all integrates seamlessly with FaceTime and Messages.

Airalow is data only and slow right ?Some need proper 5G speeds and local numbers , this is the only option I could find for travelers to the UK.

Only Travel eSIM With Voice And Data | eSIM.Net

Buy eSIMs. Unlimited data, voice and SMS for just £20 per month. 30-day rolling O2 or Vodafone plans with 5G and WiFi Calling from the only UK-based online eSIM store.

www.esim.net

 

[Fred Zed]

I chose to move to an eSIM with my UK provider EE. It couldn't have been simpler. Click a button in their app while on WiFi, press a button which installed the eSIM, simultaneously the SIM card died and could be removed, then carry on with life.

Let’s hope the UK carriers also make their PAY AS GO eSim available.

 

[Mellofello808]

In theory esim should be great.

For someone like me who likes to have multiple phones, my dream would be to one day be able to just have my sim follow whatever device i am using as easily, as logging into it.

In practice though it is much more limiting, and a pain in the butt.

 

[fischersd]

This was finalized by the GSM Alliance back in 2017 / 2018. Apple launched the cellular Series 3 Apple Watch in 2017 - so the carriers that supported the cellular Apple Watch already supported eSIM provisioning.

Using the US Carriers as the firm message to other carriers around the world is smart - they all support the Apple Watch already, so it's an easy step forward for the US Carriers.

 

[JulianL]

I am one of the people who would have been badly impacted had the SIM slot also disappeared in the UK this year because I spend about 5 months every year in South Africa and swap to a South African PAYG SIM when I am there but apart from people like me I wonder just how many people are going to be badly affected.

As pointed out there is a partial solution offered by companies like Airalo and others offering global or country-specific data-only eSIMS. For tourists that might be good enough if they only need overseas connectivity for hailing Ubers & getting email. Changing the voicemail message on their US cell number to something like "I'm away until <whenever>, I can still be contacted via WhatsApp (if appropriate, or maybe some other data-only service a user has) or by email if it's urgent..." might be enough to keep social lines of communications open and they could of course explicitly tell their families and friends to WhatsApp them (or whatever) when they are away which would give them total text, voice and even video connectivity. (Or FaceTime plus iMessages for Apple-using friends and family.)

For business people working for big companies as I did all of my career, when for many years I travelled a crazy amount (some years clocking up more flight hours most weeks than an air crew would be allowed to fly), local SIMs were never an issue for me because my employer simply picked up the roaming charges on my UK phone number and anyone I visited who needed to call me was also on expenses so didn't mind calling a UK number. Admittedly that did sometimes get expensive, there were some trips when my daily phone charges were higher than my nightly hotel room cost, but big corporations will often absorb that and presumably can negotiate special plans with lower roaming charges than those a default consumer or small business plan might offer.

Perhaps the demographic this is going to affect the worst are self-employed business people who can't contemplate roaming charges they are likely to incur when going overseas on a typical US domestic plan. And people like me who regularly take very extended overseas trips for personal reasons. How many people in total is that in the USA I wonder.

 

[NYCValkyrie]

^^ This.

Currently all the eSim options are for pay monthly in the UK.

eSIM.net runs on O2.

 

[Dovahkiing]

Have you not seen the insane prices this year for non US phones?

Haha what a great solution. Buy a more expensive phone in another country, potentially lacking certain cellular bands, and with potential warranty issues back at home.

Honestly Apple just should have offered an unlocked version with physical SIM tray or maybe offered their own “Apple SIM”.

In the EU, after your VAT refund, it’s not a big difference in price. Bands are the same.

 

[Fred Zed]

eSIM.net runs on O2.

Indeed. That’s all I could find and has been a blessing for me. As I will be traveling to the UK with my sim tray less iphone soon.
Im also hoping three UK and others start introducing eSim on their PAYG plans.

 

[NYCValkyrie]

Excellent point. I'm not in the US but on reflection I think you are correct. In the UK I use a local SA SIM when I travel to South Africa so when the UK models no longer have a physical SIM I will be concerned not only with my main UK plan but also about what I will do about my PAYG SIM that I use in South Africa.

Worldwide carriers really do have a lot of work to do potentially in the next 12 months. For travellers I imagine that the use of PAYG plans is by far the majority and in the UK it is the lack of eSIM options for PAYG that is most apparent right now. I don't think any PAYG connection is available via eSIM in either the UK or South Africa which are the two countries I care about. That really does need to change pretty much everywhere to empower international travellers again.

Oh, and no need to apologise for the list. Even as a non-US resident I found it interesting so thanks for posting that.

Edit: Actually, on that list, how many are MVNOs (Mobile Virtual Network Operators)? In the UK that is another dead zone for eSIMs. various MVNOs such as Lebara, GiffGaff, Smarty and others advertise widely and I think have quite sizeable user communities but as far as I am aware none right now offers eSIM which would be an issue for me since I use Lebara. Maybe the MVNO market in the US is a bit ahead of the UK in this respect?

Mint MObile, US MObile, Xfinity & Spectrum all offer eSIM now. More will be coming. It's a requirement if they want to sell iPhones in their stores. You can't sell a phone you can't support!

The only eSIM that allows PAYG in the UK is eSIM.net currently. I recently learned of them while I was doing more research since I'm going to have to give up my PAYG Three account when this new iPhone arrives next week and my next trip to the UK is in Nov. Whew. Just in time. lol

 

[Fred Zed]

Mint MObile, US MObile, Xfinity & Spectrum all offer eSIM now. More will be coming. It's a requirement if they want to sell iPhones in their stores. You can't sell a phone you can't support!

The only eSIM that allows PAYG in the UK is eSIM.net currently. I recently learned of them while I was doing more research since I'm going to have to give up my PAYG Three account when this new iPhone arrives next week and my next trip to the UK is in Nov. Whew. Just in time. lol

I was getting blistering 5G speeds on Three UK pay as you go

on the iPhone 13 PM earlier this year.

 

[pugxiwawa]

It’s a way to force travelers to use international travel plan instead of switching out to local sim. Why do you think Apple keep price flat in US only? I’m sure there are some backdoor negotiations with carriers.

 

[ryanmp]

In the EU, after your VAT refund, it’s not a big difference in price. Bands are the same.

Bands are not the same. Also doesn’t address the warranty issue.