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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.
Is it serious ? Is it a disposable phone or what ?
How are you going to use SIM card when you travel into a foreign country ?
This is somthing that Apple have been trying to do for a long time : full control of the phone usage.
- No microSD to prevent people from extending their storage. They shall buy a new phone. ( checked)
- No replaceable battery to prevent people to use several ones or replace it when it dies. They shall go to a store and be advised it is better to change phone as well ( checked)
- No headset jack to prevent people from using unothorised headset. They shall buy only headset that are priced as high-end but sound not so. ( checked)
- No sim card to prevent people from changing operator on the go to reduce their cost or enhance third coverage. They will be guided to a better "high end" operator that suits their needs. ( checked)
Great plan, great actions. They must go on as people are sheeps waiting for their master.
Rgs,
TM
The reprogrammable SIM card is "soldered onto the iPhone's motherboard directly
Apple has finally gone the way of their laptops which have everything bolted, soldered, then welded to the motherboard. No replaceable parts. If something breaks, oh well. Another $1,000 down the drain for the phone, or another $3,000 for an underpowered laptop.
Not sure how old this comic is, but it's about as on point as one can get.
Google already uses e-sims for Google Fi service. The Pixel's still have a physical slot for a physical sim though. As long as Apple leaves the option for a physical sim card nothing is really changing.
Unless I misunderstood, it has one traditional SIM like all iphomes always had, you can use that when buying a SIM on holiday for example. The second one is inside the device. Hence I don’t see it as a lock down issue.
Apple has been trying to do this for years. Since the first LTE iPhone in fact.
As it happens, the core specs for GSM/UMTS and LTE actually mandated SIM cards. As did PTCRB and GCF certification, which use the 3GPP specs of course.
So, they all said.. Nope.
Of course, the networks did not support OTA SIM provisioning anyhow.
Most do these days. You find that most of the new M2M products out there use soldered SIM chips.
It's good for providers, but for you, the iPhone user it kind of sucks when you want to buy a used iPhone or sell your. You need to rely on the network provider to provision your SIM based on your IMEI, which.. legally, they are not obligated to do. They can say.. nope... you have to buy a new phone because we don't do that.
I don't care all that much since I don't use an iPhone. I only get a new phone every 2 years when my company gives us new ones, so I cannot sell my phone anyhow.
But.. I guess there are plenty of people out there who change their phones often. This is not good for you.
No, the SIM card "chip" is basically the same as what you have now. It's just soldered to the board. And tiny.
You would not be able to gain access to the SIM Profile without specialized equipment. Like from Comprion. Not sure who supplies Apples chips though.
You can change some things with AT commands, but normally they have SIM Application Tool Kit which live on the SIM card and change things back every time you power up the phone.
No headphone jack, wireless charging/connecting, and eSims means that a portless sealed phone will be possible. Apple will probably have the courage to releae a phone like this, then the others will follow.
> Now what am I supposed to do?
Buy a different phone, that's what!
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Apple are always on the lookout for ways to lock in their customers, and here's a new one.
Please explain how this is restrictive and increases user lock in? All they are doing is moving the damn SIM chips out of the plastic chips and putting them on the motherboard. With a nano SIM I can get private unlimited mobile data plan that I pay for myself. I'll be able to route all my private data consumption over that number, relegate the company number my boss insists that I have to be used for phone calls only and no longer have to worry about getting chewed out for blowing the data cap on the cheap-ass data plan the company put me on. Yeah, that is so incredibly restricting, I will definitely (not) be limiting my choices to phones with only one SIM next time I upgrade.
I don't really know how SIMs work but is this not a good thing ? Is this not possible to slowly start getting rid of SIMs and only use smartphones' antenna and something like credentials in order to connect to the GSM network ? SIM cards take space and when you change carrier, they need to send you a new SIM, you have to change it, it takes time, etc. Having a soldered SIM that you can reprogram seems to me no different than having a SIMless device that you can connect and disconnect from any communication app, just like you can already do with any smartphone for any app, except this time it is to connect to the GSM network. I'm probably missing something as I'm not really knowledgeable on that matter so enlighten me, please.
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.
www.gaiageek.com
SIM cards die over time. 10+ years, you're lucky it still works. And new cards have extra cuts so you can 'extract' mini, micro, or nano as you need, then push it back into the frame and put into a larger slot. (or even not extract from the whole big credit card sized SIM card and put into an antique phone that accepted these.)
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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.
Yeah I know I use a 2 year old Android phone with dual sim.
The Chinese version will be the one to get then by the sounds of it. The others will be locked, you want to change your sim, you will need to use an app that registers it with Cupertino. Sure vendors will have this option, but the days where you can go with any vendor you choose, well that will depend on how friendly they are with Apple HQ.
You could try to have your main phone number on eSIM so that frees the real SIM slot for your abroad number.
it is of course ridiculous that Apple sells the better, dual physical SIM model in China only! That eye openly ugly Apple has become to thread the rest of the world customers like this. So instead of the simplicity of inserting a local SIM we should go thru the pain and discussions and management overhead and DRM of eSIM? Not only does the Chinese model show that Apple can do it, in the Samsung Galaxy they even still fit an SD card, ..! https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
You're blatantly spreading FUD, but I guess I'll bite.
Your unlocked phone is linked to whichever service it's initially activated with. 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. The activation profile is still AT&T until you do either a phone erase from the settings menu or through iTunes. There are some very specific exceptions, like if you're using an AT&T phone and put in a SIM card that is an MVNO that uses AT&Ts network. Even then, it's a very specific circumstance where you can just turn off the phone and swap cards without doing a restore. You can still restore an iTunes/iCloud backup, but the initial configuration is set when the phone is first set up from the 'Hello' screen.
So no, you could (almost) never just use a paperclip and swap carriers. Just like the Apple Watch, the ESIM has a specific identifier that you just tell the new carrier what it is and they register it to their network. You can twist yourself in knots all you want about "I don't know where to get that number from because I'm scared to tap on the info button" but it saves you a trip to your new cell carriers physical store and you can just call them from another phone and tell them the number (or still go to the actual store if you don't have another phone).
As for your pricing, $2600 CAD is currently $2000 USD. You've taken literally the most expensive model, maxed out the storage, put not only AppleCare+, but also the additional loss/theft coverage on it, and STILL have extra money that I'm not sure where you came up with. Are you also adding in the cost of a case plus Airpods? Again, FUD.
Please make up more fake examples in your mind why the new phone that you haven't touched or even seen in person yet is literally Hitler in phone form.
"Well kids, you tried your best, and you failed. The lesson is, never try." -Homer Simpson
I've had enough of the obvious greed that underlies Apple's removal of the headphone jack, deletion of the MagSafe connector, and other similar
moves.
I used to be an Apple evangelist. Now I despise Apple.
I think smart people are going to move away from Apple. Apple is simply doing too many things that are grossly insulting to intelligent users.
Perhaps Jobs planned it this way. Appointing a person with no design sense as CEO could have been part of his strategy to show the world that Apple could not succeed without him.
"Please explain how this is restrictive and increases user lock in?"
You don't know how "SIMs" work. Really?
Right now, I can easily take the SIM out of one phone, plug it into another, and I'm using a different phone. I can switch between iOS and Android or even a feature phone, or between phones from different manufacturers. If traveling, I can buy a prepaid SIM locally and use that in my phone to avoid roaming costs. No need to get the carrier or anyone else involved, and I can do it as often as I want.
Why don't you tell us how that happens with a soldered in "eSIM."
All of the benefits you mention were in regard to dual SIMs, not eSIMs. It will be interesting to see if Apple's dual capability works with Verizon.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
>Your unlocked phone is linked to whichever service it's initially activated with.
huh what ? Can't you buy a phone from an electronics store without any sim inside it in the US ?
Yeah, I agree with the OP. There's no good reason for an eSIM.
It's about $1400 for all that, plus $600 in dongles so it can actually be used.
Don't forget applecare.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
Your unlocked phone is linked to whichever service it's initially activated with. 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.
Does unlocked mean something different over there? Because that's exactly what unlocked means, at least here in the uk, unless this is a thing specific to iphones which really wouldn't surprise me.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
Did you even read the fucking article?
OK, so, here it is - now PAY ATTENTION!
a). Two SIMs.
b). ONE SIM is built into the one.
c). ONE SIM is a standard nano SIM that is easily replaceable.
Got that?
Just to be clear - YES, you can replace your SIM when you are overseas.
This is a feature I was specifically looking for and may encourage me to upgrade from my 6s+, when I otherwise would not.
I can. And i have also bought an unlocked phone in US and put my foreign SIM in it and it worked fine, so yes you can.
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. The activation profile is still AT&T until you do either a phone erase from the settings menu or through iTunes.
Uh, yes you can. I've done it.
1). Buy SIM-free phone from Apple
2). Put my existing Verizon SIM card in it.
3). Works great.
4). Remove Verizon SIM card.
5). Install AT&T SIM card.
6). Works great.
This doesn't add up. I bought a phone from AT&T and once it was paid for, I went to AT&T and they walked me through the unlocking process.
I planned a trip to the UK and a friend mailed me an activated prepaid Asda SIM. When the pilot announced we were landing in 30 minutes, I ejected my AT&T SIM and inserted the Asda SIM.
Once we landed, I immediately had voice and data service on Asda's network.
The only carrier involvement was the unlocking process.
My most recent iPhone I bought unlocked from Apple directly. I don't even think I went to AT&T, I just moved my SIM to the new phone and it worked.
I think the parent poster's concern is legitimate -- this is easy and only involves a tiny card now. eSIM switching sounds way more complicated. I can't just pop into a shop and buy a prepaid SIM when I land unless there's some method of reprogramming my SIM on the phone with some code from a package and both the phone and the local network are smart enough to do this over the air without costing me a million dollars in roaming fees, finding a landline, using a laptop, etc.
My experience with carriers makes me believe they will do everything in their power to make this complicated and diffcult.
Yet another way to control what you do with your phone. EVERY phone should have a sim slot that can be populated with whatever sim card you want.
You mean like the new phones Apple just announced?
"These handsets will have a new "dual SIM dual standby" option, one of which will be a nano SIM."
How is that unclear??
All you people complaining about not being able to replace a SIM card are...well, morons may be a little rough, but that's the first word that comes to mind. But let's go with "uninformed".
There is still a SIM tray.
What you are supposed to do, is pop that out and put in your nano-sim just like you always did.
It even says it right there in the god damn summary:
These handsets will have a new "dual SIM dual standby" option, one of which will be a nano SIM.
Can you spend 10 seconds to read before firing off some angry tirade that is completely wrong, please?
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Wrong.
These handsets will have a new "dual SIM dual standby" option, one of which will be a nano SIM.
Right there in the summary. If you want a physical SIM, use the slot. Work it out with your carrier.
Please read.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
The one blatantly spreading FUD is you. You are describing a locked US handset. Unlocked means exactly that, you take any SIM in and out at will and it just works. Disclaimer: I work for a Nordic provider.
If your iPhone is carrier unlocked, you just eject the SIM and put in a new one. It sees that it was ejected and gives you a message saying there is no SIM present, and then when it sees the new one it attempts to activate.
Just like literally any other GSM phone ever. And this functionality has been in every single iPhone going back to the original HSPA+ 4GB model.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
You're blatantly spreading FUD, but I guess I'll bite. Your unlocked phone is linked to whichever service it's initially activated with. 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. The activation profile is still AT&T until you do either a phone erase from the settings menu or through iTunes. There are some very specific exceptions, like if you're using an AT&T phone and put in a SIM card that is an MVNO that uses AT&Ts network.
That sounds pretty weird . Is this Apple problem or American problem?
Because I definitely can throw a random SIM into my sony handset and it just works - Orange, Virgin, anything else, does not matter. That's the whole point of having SIM as a separate, removable component.
"The new iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max will use eSIM technology to allow users to use two phone lines on a single device."
Regarding multi-line, at least one carrier already provides a voice multi-line service on one device (BYOD) without requiring a special eSIM handset.
https://business.sprint.com/so...
Not sure how it would compare to eSIM.
Same here. I used my unlocked iPhone SE on T-Mobile for 18 months, then joined my gf's Verizon plan. All that was needed was a Sim pop. Not even a reboot. I'll say that for visual voicemail to work again, Verizon had do something. Didn't need to hook it up to a PC , though.
A sentence you'll never see on an Internet discussion board: "You know what? You're right."
Yes, the difference being that many people go buy them from ATT/Verizon/whatever stores, and end up with locked phones. Totally unrelated to all of this, and not exclusive to Apple. As long as people continue to buy phones this way, the practice will continue. Rarely though will you see a premium smart phone, from any vendor, ACTUALLY discounted for the contract duration, unless there are huge problems with the phone, or it's nearing the normal upgrade cycle from that phone vendor.
Mostly he's full of shit I think. I personally don't want to deal with sim cards, I don't understand why they still exist. I'd rather just load all that into my phone and forget about it. I suspect the real issue might be cloning sims, this might be harder to do when the actual sim is taken out of your hands, but it's not something I've had a desire to do.
Other than not having physical space used for two SIM card trays, contacts, mechanical retainer clips, waterproofing seals, etc., which can be used for other things?
Sounds like good reasoning to me, especially since there is still a SIM tray available.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
LOL did you just really ask if the AC spewing FUD read the article before posting lies?
It says it right there in the damn summary that there's still a nano-SIM tray. But this is an article about a new feature of a new Apple product, so the only things you're going to read are about how they either copied someone else, or kneejerk chicken-little horseshit that is at best partially correct, but usually completely wrong.
This is what Slashdot does now. To be fair, even 10 years ago nobody actually read the articles - they just based their kneejerk chicken-little horseshit on the summary.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
In the bad old days an "unlocked" phone would lock itself to the carrier that the SIM was linked to after a certain amount of time. You could swap carriers for a certain amount of time, but then it would stay put, requiring an esoteric unlock process that was a jealously guarded secret. Then the courts ruled you HAD to let people unlock in an easy way. I figured that meant that they'd just stop auto-locking phones. I guess the practice still exists for some lucky consumers.
Maybe before you rant you should actually make an effort to understand what an esim actually is?
You setup the esim on your phone. The
setup can be done manually or through a QR code. No server activation or laptop is needed. You donâ(TM)t even need a paper clip.
https://www.androidauthority.c... 31 billion made from Android. That was brought up by Oracle in the suit about the programming language. Guess you aren't to smart are you
Anonymous comments are as pathetic as the anonymous "sources" that contaminate gutless journalism from the New York Time
Tim Cook stated you change it with a QR code. Maybe swapping back and forth is possible...
I think you underestimate just how much I just dont care.
It's a very misleading, click-baity headline.
The phone still has a physical nano-SIM, so that if you travel you can purchase and use a SIM card.
The eSIM is what enables the second phone number.
If you want a completely unlocked iPhone, you have to go to Apple. Don’t know if they carry them in their stores - at least at first, you had to order online to get an unlocked X (with free ship-to-store). Also, the unlocked ones were not available on launch day. Maybe six weeks later.
Why? I don't ask that in a condescending manner, I genuinely want to know.
So that I can have my work # and data plan in the same phone as my personal # and data plan, instead of carrying around two phones.
Yes - you can play games with forwarding and Google voice and whatever else - not nearly the same.
Yeah, I know. I was just burning off some steam (:
Unless you already have two SIM cards that need to be swapped, you really should look at virtual phone numbers from Google Voice and many other providers. The SIM for your domestic needs, and the virtual phones can be for everything else. I have active phone numbers on my phone right now in Hong Kong, Germany, and the US.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
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.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
All verizon iphones are unlocked by default, the rest of the carriers in the US can be unlocked, but they need to unlock it for you..
Can't you buy a phone from an electronics store without any sim inside it in the US ?
The US mobile phone business works very differently from that of other countries for a variety of reasons, some of which are actually kind of stupid. But your question is very specific and I'll instead deal with the question of "Can't you buy an unlocked phone from an electronics store in the US?" which would cover phones that may or may not have SIMs in them but are definitely unlocked, which is what you are really asking about. It is possible to do so, but such phones are hard to buy and will contain no discounts of any kind. For iphones, you may have to buy them directly from Apple as the mobile phone companies here may refuse to sell you an unlocked phone. The way mobile phones (called "cell phones" universally here in the USA) work is that you buy them from a phone company and they give you a discount in exchange for you signing a contract, usually 2 years, with the phone company. Such phones at a discount are locked. It is possible to get locked phones unlocked. Once your original contract ends, you can ask the phone company to unlock it for you. AT&T and T-Mobile should be willing to do this without complaint. I have no experience with Verizon and Sprint or any other smaller companies. It is also possible to pay a 3rd party company to unlock your phone. I have an old iPhone 5c I got unlocked by using http://www.doctorsim.com/ to do it. I paid their cheapest price to unlock it and it took about a month, but they did unlock it. Because my phone bill was paid for by my work, it's a long story but I couldn't get AT&T to unlock it directly because they required some account information that I don't have because I never see my bill, so I had to use DoctorSim to do it.
" 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.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
While many phones have featured dual SIM slots for several years now, Apple has improved on this. They will provide a dual-SIM phone that is more expensive and features one SIM that is soldered in place instead of being removable like a normal SIM. This furthers their company policy of selling devices that are welded shut and not serviceable by their owners. And, their advertising will attempt to make it look like they invented the idea of dual SIMs. The appeal of this company to so many people mystifies me.
You update the info that traditionally goes onto a SIM into the eSIM, same way you update credentials into any other authentication system.
Put another way, a SIM is like 'buy a CD-ROM, put it in your computer, every time you wnat to use that app' and an eSIM is like 'download directly to your hard drive, run whenever, switch to a different version whenever.'
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Meanwhile other manufacturers solve that problem by providing 2 SIM slots.
For your alternate number, and save some money
Anonymous comments are as pathetic as the anonymous "sources" that contaminate gutless journalism from the New York Time
It is common to all phones here, not just iPhones. "Locked" means that the phone itself will only accept SIM cards from a specific vendor. "Unlocked" means it will accept SIM cards from anyone, as long as the phone is physically capable of talking on that SIM's network.
You didn't answer the question.
You don't update SIMs, you get a new one if changing carriers. eSIMs let you sign up for service from carriers who support them. What about MVNOs? How do you switch back and forth to a phone which uses a standard SIM?
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Or you could get a 'phone with two sim slots, just like all those Android phones have had for years.
Nope. This is just a way to avoid you from selling your old phone.
(Oh, you thought the procedure for changing it was going to be easy?)
I'm sure they'll sell it as an "anti theft" feature though - Thieves won't be able to remove your SIM card(!)
No sig today...
Even if you do do this, you can't easily get a new standalone SIM card for a few bucks in the US. You can buy a cheap shitty prepaid phone, and charge it with minutes, but you can't readily just get the SIM. I actually have an old Android phone picked up on my last trip to the UK (some stupid promo that came with 30 days unlimited data that was cheaper) that I was looking to re-sim back in the 'States and gave up.
Some pedant will point out that there are places where you can and I'm sure that's true, but even in major cities they're neither easy to find nor significant in volume. Its nothing like Europe in that way.
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
You're blatantly spreading FUD, but I guess I'll bite.
Your unlocked phone is linked to whichever service it's initially activated with. 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.
1 week after getting my iPhone 6s, I was able to swap out the Verizon SIM card with an AT&T one and it just worked. A few months later I was able to swap out that AT&T SIM and put in a T-Mobile SIM and it just worked.
All verizon iphones are unlocked by default.
Are you sure?
Verizon is Locking Its Phones Down To Combat Theft
It's not so simple, because voltage hase been lowered over time, so even Nokia 33.10 will not work with most current mini-sims :-(
Here in Canada, it was ruled that phones have to be unlocked or easy to unlock (as well as the phone payments being a separate line on the bill). So phones were delivered unlocked.
Now they're going back to locking them due to claims of theft, as in theft of pallets of phones on the way to the store. You can still phone up and get the unlocking code.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Meanwhile other manufacturers solve that problem by providing 2 SIM slots.
I don't care how a solution is implemented, provided it meets my requirements.
1. The new iPhone has 2 SIMs. One of them is traditional nano-SIM and is swappable
2. The eSIM is reprogrammable and Apple has already given instructions on how to do it.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Well, much like you don't buy a Windows machine if your app is Mac only, you don't buy an eSim-only phone if your provider of choice doesn't support it.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
I agree with you, but the AC was saying that android does not make a profit.
Anonymous comments are as pathetic as the anonymous "sources" that contaminate gutless journalism from the New York Time
Seems a bad idea. I'm on EE (UK) and my choice is either EE or EE.. it can't be unlocked.
Also if not topped up for a 6 month period they deactivate the internal eSIM - permanently. I was very lucky in that I caught it in a limbo state (lasts about a week) so they could reactivate mine. I now have a reminder set to put £1 on it every 5 months.
In attempt to bring us more prof..features to our users, now all registration related information to the phone is hard wired in!
This fantastic feature ensures we can remotely control your phone at anytime and disable access to carriers without any setup required, we'll just use your special unique esim number to lock that phone to what we want in the future when you're forced to accept a new terms of service to keep using the phone!
Congratulations!
Another slashdot anti-Apple article. There is still a physical sim slot, two even, if you are in China.
So that the phone can always be identified - got it. Except in China where both sims can be swapped out. Makes you wonder who pressured apple to do this.
will be to have you insert a drop of your own blood into the phone when you want to unlock it.
Your unlocked phone is linked to whichever service it's initially activated with. 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.
Does unlocked mean something different over there? Because that's exactly what unlocked means, at least here in the uk, unless this is a thing specific to iphones which really wouldn't surprise me.
The issue is CDMA. That protocol doesn't use SIM cards. An unlocked CDMA iPhone can be moved to any GSM-based carrier, but can't be moved to a different CDMA-based carrier than the one it was originally activated on. And if you originally activate it on a non-CDMA carrier, the carriers generally won't let you activate it on their service even if it is capable of being activated for CDMA. (This is a cellular provider policy limitation, not a technical one.)
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Even if you do do this, you can't easily get a new standalone SIM card for a few bucks in the US.
Interesting. Here in the UK, I can get a £0.99 Sim card in the supermarket.
So no, you could (almost) never just use a paperclip and swap carriers.
Err yes you can and people do it all the time. It's a pretty damn classic use case for any traveler. Hell you can even buy phone cases with openable storage slots on the back for all the SIM cards you currently don't use. Back when I was burdened with an iPhone I used to regularly swap between two major carriers as well since one provided a better data package and the other provided better coverage when I was driving out to the bush.
Tim Cook stated you change it with a QR code. Maybe swapping back and forth is possible...
I'll be interested how this works in the UI, because the user will have to decide which number to use for dialling (for example if you use your phone as private and company phone and obviousy want to keep your numbers apart).
What, are you new around here?
That hasn't been my experience. I swap SIMs when I travel internationally, sometimes multiple times. I don't pay much attention to which carrier it is, usually it's the best deal, the one closest to my hotel, or the one with the first booth I see in the airport. The phone doesn't care, and doesn't need to be reset.
From what I can find about eSIM, it appears you're correct on that front though: the eSIM is just a bit of data you can download. The idea is to let a phone hold as many as you want, and you can just switch between them. It sounds like a great idea... I've got a case of physical SIMs and have lost the PINs for most of them.
The idea behind the eSIM is that you can have as many as you want. Tap the one you want to use. No need for paperclips or keeping track of little chips of plastic and metal.
If you have no need to switch SIMs now, then you won't care about eSIMs. If you do, once they're fully implemented they'll be very nice. I've got about a dozen SIMs to keep track of, although I can probably go down to about four now that the EU has decided to let one SIM work anywhere. Much nicer to have those as options on a menu.
Do I need a fucking laptop to do that?
No. https://support.apple.com/en-u...
What you need
A iPhone Xs or iPhone Xs Max with an update to iOS 12 coming later this year
A QR code or a carrier app from a wireless carrier that supports eSIM*
To use two different carriers, your iPhone must be unlocked. Otherwise, both plans must be from the same carrier. If a CDMA carrier provides your first SIM, your second SIM won't support CDMA. Contact your carrier for more information.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
Read the god damn summary again then.
These handsets will have a new "dual SIM dual standby" option, one of which will be a nano SIM.
In case you missed it again:
one of which will be a nano SIM.
again:
a nano SIM.
Got it yet? Probably not.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Unlocked phone in UK and EU.
Phone hardware and teleco provider are not in any way linked.
Usually on PAYG [Pay as You go] deals or contract deals bought from teleco.
Phone works with all teleco providers. You buy SIM from them to have phone number, you can swap SIMS as regularly as you like. When changing countries if you like you can have a SIM for best deal in each country, just swap out.
I never buy a 'locked to a teleco' phone.
Regards Eion MacDonald