Apple Moves the iPhone Away From Physical SIMs (arstechnica.com)

The new iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max will use eSIM technology to allow users to use two phone lines on a single device. You could have a work or personal number, or an American and Canadian number if you travel across the border frequently. The reprogrammable SIM card is "soldered onto the iPhone's motherboard directly," and measures just 6 millimeters by 5 millimeters," reports Ars Technica, citing GSMArena.com. From the report: These handsets will have a new "dual SIM dual standby" option, one of which will be a nano SIM. In other words, they will have two distinct phone numbers. (Chinese models will have two SIM slots instead of the eSIM option.) Since their debut in 1991, traditional, physical SIM cards have decreased dramatically in size. eSIMs have already been around for nearly a year, since they were introduced into the Apple Watch and Google Pixel 2, among other devices.

Comments

And what if I need to change my number abroad?

[Anonymous Coward]

Do I need a fucking laptop to do that?

Before, I could just use a paperclip. SIM cards are practically universal, so there was no issue with an unlocked iPhone. Now what am I supposed to do? No doubt this probably relies on some sort of external activation server to work- what if I can't get through to that or I don't have any internet connection?

Between this and the $2600 CAD price tag of the iPhone Excess Max, I guess my SE will be the last iPhone I ever own.

Re:And what if I need to change my number abroad?

[rickb928]

I do. not. care. how much money Google makes from Android, so long as it powers useful phones that I want and can benefit from. Of all the straw man arguments, profit from the sale of stuff you want is both classic and exceptionally dumb.

It's alright to be part of someone else's dream.

Re:And what if I need to change my number abroad?

[rickb928]

" Even an unlocked phone, you can't take out an AT&T card and swap in a Sprint card and just turn it back on and have it work"

Wrong. I'll assume you're not deliberately lying.

When my M8 finally started failing I got an Amazon BLU R1HD, and it was adequate. It was unlocked.

I dropped my T-Mobile SIM in it, no problems. Later, I got a FreedomPOP SIM for my daughter, and worked with it for a week to understand what it would do. I dropped it into the BLU, it worked, NO PROBLEM.

How do you suppose people, as they discuss earlier in this thread, swap out their US SIM for a 'foreign SIM' when travelling, if their unlocked phone was still locked to the carrier?

You, my friend, have conflated locked/unlocked with carrier compatibility. Unless it's LTE, or includes an essentially universal radio, a Sprint phone is physically incompatible with AT&T and AT&T phones similarly. Until LTE permitted a more or less universally compatible voice/data networking scheme, AT&T, using GSM, was incompatible with Sprint, using any of the various flavors of CDMA. Verizon v. AT&T also, and T-Mobile using GSM similarly compatible with AT&T but not Verizon/Sprint, though AT&T and TMO both played games with software to annoy customers back when carriers thought phone lock-in was a thing, though back then 'unlocked' was a fever dream travelling subscribers suffered from in their first-class seats. This all goes back to the old wireline v. non-wireline, or Cell A v. Cell B of NAMPS and then TDMA/CDMA. For a little while I had a Siemens S46 demon phone from hell, that tried to straddle TDMA and GSM, with marginal success. LTE today can permit phones to work on any network, but only in LTE modes, if it's all correct.

It wasn't the lock/unlock status that prevented you from using an AT&T phone on Sprint's network, it was the actual network. And ti need nto happend with a recently manufactured phone.

We'll leave the whole Sprint/Motorola/Nextel/iDEN fiasco on the floor where it belongs.

Re:Disposable phone ?

[pablo_max]

It is done via OTA SIM provisioning.
I think that is handled under 3GPP 31.124, but could be 121.

Dual-SIM is awesome

[gaiageek]

Having switched to a dual-SIM Android device a few years ago, I now find it hard to go back to single-SIM. It's incredibly useful when traveling: running your home SIM to receive calls/messages plus a local SIM for cheap data and a local number. But even when home, it's nice to be able to leverage the power of dual-SIM by running a 2nd prepaid SIM from another network for those times when coverage from your main provider is lacking - or if you simply need a 2nd line for work purposes.

Even though I'm no Apple fan, I'm happy to see them finally make this step, and this is a rare instance where I hope other manufacturers do their usual "copy latest iPhone feature" procedure and make dual-SIM functionality a standard feature.

Now if only someone would release a modern dual-SIM phone (with 2nd SIM 3G/LTE) with a sub-5.0" screen size.

Re:Just another way for Apple to lock people in

[Anonymous Coward]

There are already lots of phones available with support for dual SIMs and as you might've read the Chinese version had 2 physical sims instead of eSIM+microSIM.

> Please explain how this is restrictive and increases user lock in?

Ever heard of the second hand market?
It's really annoying to transfer a number and I expect it to be just as hard to transfer eSIMs (and if it isn't it probably has some security issue).
Just swapping a sim card like you swap a memory card or battery is really underappreciated until you stand there and don't have a choice.