I don't like it. Having a physical object the embodies your phone's identity is a lot easier to deal with in many ways than an ethereal emulation of said object. For instance, if I'm traveling I can just buy a SIM card at a kiosk and pop it in, even if I can only communicate through little more than pointing and grunting. Another example: I got a new phone recently, but since all my stuff was still on my old phone, after the new phone was activated I told the clerk to put the new SIM back into the old phone. It was painless and literally took a minute. I'm sure dicking around with eSIMs would have taken far longer, and I'd have spend even more time dicking around to transfer things back.
> Apple's former design chief Jony Ive once envisioned the iPhone as becoming a "single slab of glass," and the SIM card slot's removal would be another step towards a seamless design...
I really do hate purist visions like that.
> Taking out the slot would also free up some valuable internal space in the iPhone — every bit counts.
And my money is that they'll use whatever volume they free up to mindlessly make the phone thinner.
>> For instance, if I'm traveling I can just buy a SIM card at a kiosk and pop it in
That is exactly what apple doesn't want you to do. They don't want users making deals with local ISPs for service. They want in on that transaction. Virtual SIMs, controlled by phone manufacturers, will allow them to exercise a degree of control over wandering users. If you are a local ISP, you better be part of the program if you want to sell your services to apple's devices. And most users will be OK with this. They will probably appreciated not having to buy a local SIM cars. They will enjoy how easily their virtual SIM connected to the local ISP and hooked them into a the prearranged roaming deal for apple devices. They won't question the price because they will have no input into a negotiation that happened years before they arrived in the country. All that is left for them is to blindly pay the bills.
To me, there is nothing to indicate this is a power grab by Apple.
Google supports eSIM. Google can sell you cell service for your iPhone from the couch.
If any phone manufacturer is trying to compete with the carriers, it would look a lot like Google, which made a global MVNO.
Yes, there is usually a business motive behind every business decision. The GSMA makes it sound like the carriers want it, as well as the phone manufacturers:
“Simpler device setup without the need to insert or replace a SIM card;
Devices that can operate independently of a tethered smartphone, with their own subscriptions;
A range of new, enhanced mobile-connected devices.”
I don't understand. I can get an eSIM from my telecom provider and scan it with a QR Code to activate it in Android. I've done this with Telenor in Europe and Zain in the Middle East. It works great. I can even switch between them on the fly!
How does the phone manufacturer have anything to do with it? My only wish is to support multiple eSIMs, as now I only have one physical SIM slot and one eSIM.
> They don't want users making deals with local ISPs for service. They want in on that transaction. Virtual SIMs, controlled by phone manufacturers, will allow them to exercise a degree of control over wandering users.
SIMs come from the phone company. How could it be otherwise as that's where the phone number comes from, and that's how the local physical network determines whether you're allowed to connect or not:
I doubt this. Apple could charge an activation fee with a normal SIM already and yet they don’t. And any money gained from this would be insignificant to their other revenue streams. People don’t change SIMs that often
> They want in on that transaction. Virtual SIMs, controlled by phone manufacturers, will allow them to exercise a degree of control over wandering users.
[ citation needed ]
eSIM is already a standard and as far as I can tell, Apple gets no kickbacks/etc for users using it. I can go to att.com right now and swap to an eSIM if I were so inclined, for free.
> Having a physical object the embodies your phone's identity
A SIM is not a embodiment of an iPhone’s identity. Maybe it was in the 90s, but today it’s so much more. The SIM is more like your iPhone’s credentials for accessing one network. You can change SIMs, change your access token for one network, but you are making no bigger impact on your phone’s “identity” than if you were to change Wi-Fi networks.
List of Identity related things that change when you change your SIM
* Network Access Layer data associated with the cellular networks
* Phone Number
List of Identity relates things that do not change when changing your SIM
* All data stored on the phone (messages, photos, apps)
* Two Factor Authentication apps like Duo, PingID, Authy
* ICloud Accounts
* Stored passwords
* Login tokens for various apps like email, social media, etc
* Browser Cookies
* Applet Wallet Data
They were correct. They're saying your phone service identity (I am X number on Y network plan). Not your personal identity (pictures of your kids and passwords).
Today if your phone fails, you can pop a sim in another phone and regain your phone service identity within minutes. No SIM, it could take days or even weeks.
>> Having a physical object the embodies your phone's identity
> The SIM is more like your iPhone’s credentials for accessing one network.
That's what I meant. Anyone with any familiarity with SIM cards knows it's no personality chip that brings everything over with it, and if it were such a thing it would probably be pretty annoying.
> they'll use whatever volume they free up to mindlessly make the phone thinner.
It's funny this commenter accuses Apple of mindlessness when they did not look up that the iPhone 13 and 13 Pro are thicker than their respective counterparts from last year.
Other features like battery life are clearly more important to people than thinness and that seems to be catching on with manufacturers (although weight still matters).
I would speculate that removal of the physical SIM card is more likely to be about one (or a combination) of:
* Apple taking even more control over the device
* Making it marginally more difficult to switch to another brand's ecosystem
This hasn't been my experience. I use only eSIMs now on an iPhone 13. I buy eSIMs via Airalo's iOS app (not affiliated, not an ad but love it).
It takes me 30 seconds from buying an eSIM in any country worldwide from their app, paying with Apple Pay, to having it active and working with data and voice line.
I travel a lot and before it'd take 15 minutes to sometimes an hour of driving to a phone shop or finding it at the airport, getting your passport copied (fraud risk), getting foreign money in cash out to pay, and handing a stranger your phone.
Big improvement for me. And I can run 2x eSIMs at the same time!
Airalo sounds interesting. I'm a bit suspicious of the offering though after studying their website. No business address, no mention where it's based, privacy policy is not GDRP compliant. Not sure if this is a serious business.
The problem with services like Airalo is that they almost never give you a local phone number. In many countries getting a phone number involves showing a physical id.
I imagine a world where you just a bring a phone anywhere and it you open your network settings, go to your cellular data menu, and then automatically it detects the mobile network providers that support the towers it can see.
Then you tap on the one you want, select the package you want, pay for it from that menu and then bam you are connected.
All without having an existing Wi-Fi or Cellular data plan.
There needs to be some basic/back-end service that allows for this type of communication to people not already subscribed to a mobile network.
> Then you tap on the one you want, select the package you want, pay for it from that menu and then bam you are connected.
And what if those menus are in some foreign language I don't understand? And how would that work with cash? I'd have to fork over my credit card (assuming that's even an acceptable form of payment) and may end up with a recurring charge for a cell plan in a country I'll visit for a week.
Visions like yours are nice, but my money is what we'll actually get is a far crappier, buggier version.
One impossible-to-replace benefit of physical objects is that you can use physical control to place limits on them. Pay with cash, no recurring changes, move the card, move the service. Theoretically you could do that in software, but practically you won't because those are expensive features that almost always get cut.
That was exactly my experience traveling from USA to Europe. My iPhone didn't support global bands and wouldn't work with a local SIM. My iPad, however, came with the Apple SIM and let me purchase a local data plan in 2 different countries through a convenient menu that came up automatically. I'm sure there's a telecom company requirement for why this capability doesn't seem to work in a regular phone.
You can do all of that with SIM already. The only restriction placed is by cell providers. You either use roaming feature, or if you use SIM that supposed to use multiple providers (like Google Fi) then it can use multiple networks.
This change is bad for the customer no matter what. It's similar to me to what Verizon had during CDMA days.
My ideal goes further than that. All I want is a reasonable data plan with non extortionate roaming rates from my existing provider (phone service is not important to me these days due to FaceTime/WhatsApp/etc). Some providers were starting to offer decent roaming to a large selection of countries that came out of your existing allowance with no additional charge but they seem to have started rolling back on that now as margins are getting squeezed. There is no reason for roaming charges for 1 week to be higher than the cost of a 1 month pre-paid local sim.
(For iPhones to work on your network you would HAVE to sell bandwidth to Apple who then uses it for international roaming. The user really is connecting to and using Apple's Network, the local ISP only has the priviledge of serving packets to Apple devices.)
That is exactly how it does (or did?) work with the Apple SIM card in an cellular iPad. You unlock the iPad it asks which network you want to connect to, and you pay with your credit card for the duration you choose
> If I'm traveling I can just buy a SIM card at a kiosk and pop it in
I don't understand this comment.
Pre-COVID I used to travel a lot for business, with an iPhone.
iPhone has physical SIM + virtual SIM.
My "home" SIM would stay in my iPhone.
Meanwhile I would have one of the many eSIM apps (Truephone, GigSky etc.) on my phone, which I would activate for international data for X days which would enable me to continue doing VoIP and messaging apps as normal.
I don't see the need to go buy local SIMs (and indeed, in some countries, buying SIMs as a foreigner is difficult for legal not language barrier reasons).
The difference is the price. Any international eSim plan is many times more expensive per GB than a local sim card. Especially if you need a lot of GBs.
I don't understand the comments here at all. Advocating for a far less convenient physical solution over a digital solution - on HN? Has anyone here actually dealt with eSIMs vs regular SIMs? I've been using phones since SIM cards were the size of a credit card, and eSIMs are amazing in every way compared to physical SIMs. What am I missing?
When I helped my dad get a new iPhone at an Apple store without my mom (who is the primary holder of the phone account), my dad had to give all sorts of information to the employee and had to jump through a bunch of hoops that involved my mom being on the phone to give to the employee (things like giving my mom's SSN to the employee, sending a text to my mom's phone, and some other things I cannot remember now).
After about 30 minutes of frustration, I saw that there was a physical SIM slot. We restarted the whole process to buy an unlocked iPhone and swapped the SIM card. That process took 3 minutes.
I also have no problems swapping my SIM between an Android, Pinephone, Pinepine Pro, and Librem 5 to test out various things. Or buying a used/new phone and not having to visit my carrier's store to switch the eSIM. Or permentantly swapping my SIM to a Pinephone. Every time I have had to visit my carrier's store, I have to dedicate an hour to it. I also REALLY don't want Best Buy or some other thir party handling my PII to swap an eSIM.
Every time I've transferred my eSIM to a different phone, I had to get a QR code regenerated.
Physical SIMs can be swapped in seconds.
Was your experience of transfer simpler?
Have you ever switched SIMs continuously, in an ad-hoc way, because you had more SIMs than phones? This isn't that unusual if you're on a road trip or, especially, if you're relocating.
I switched to using an eSIM with the iPhone 11. I was frequently traveling internationally and wanted the convenience of quickly purchasing a local SIM at my destination for easy cheap data, while retaining my US eSIM for important communication back home.
It took [large US mobile operator] THREE days and multiple conversations to get the eSIM working. Multiple support techs either told me eSIM's did not exist or were not compatible with [large US mobile operator]. I sure hope this has improved in the US since my experience.
>Advocating for a far less convenient physical solution over a digital solution - on HN?
Maybe HN readers don't applaud knee-jerkλυ something just because it's digital.
As for which is "more convenient" that is what should be proved, not taken for granted. And this includes a lot of cases (travelling, using 2 phones, and so on).
Maybe once the carriers are forced to adapt, but in Canada they don't support them on most eSIM capable devices. Swapping an eSIM requires an app, entering values, waiting for the swapping process. Whereas a physical SIM I can just pop out and pop into another phone.
To me it is more loss of control of our devices; No headphone jack, Bluetooth doesn't actually turn off, no SD card slot, locking batteries and screens, powering off the phone but it is still awake, now no SIM card.
[yes I know some deeply buried settings can override the above]
I on the other hand have been on Verizon's no-SIM CDMA network. Didn't like it, and don't want to get back but this time giving the power to phone manufacturer's. SIM is giving power to the customer, and I actually don't understand those sheepish comments on HN.
Virtual sims are incredibly convenient for traveling. The first time I used one in Thailand it was magical: no need to buy and pop a physical SIM into your phone, and no need to take care and not lose your original SIM.
Thailand carriers are also competitive on the global stage due to the data arbitrage they get from so much inbound tourist data demand. The AIS SIM2Fly eSIM 130 country roaming SIM is 30% cheaper than Google Fi in about 90 countries and 60% cheaper in 30 Asian countries.
I recently had an iPhone repaired and apple wiped the device including the eSIM. I took it to the Verizon store and even they couldn’t get the eSIM working again and I walked out with a new physical SIM. They need to plan a lot more of the experience out before removing the SIM in my opinion as well.
Or Apple will just do it and the rest of the world will get on board. If Apple removes the SIM and people have a bad experience at Verizon, they will blame Verizon, not Apple.
Apple have a long history of not being afraid of getting ahead of the curve. Sometimes it works out (removal of floppy drive), sometimes it doesn't (lack of ports on the previous gen MBP).
For a lot of less technically inclined folks I think eSIMs would introduce a lot of complexity. Swapping a SIM card is rather straight forward, and I know that for example my mother could easily do it by herself and has done so in the past. I don't think she would be able to swap an eSIM using the customer portal of her operator if it was necessary. I could see this causing a lot of headache for customer support or nearby relatives ;)
Personally, I would also prefer to have the SIM-tray as a backup and for travel. Most prepaid plans in Europe still don't support eSIMs.
This is typical of Apple to force a technology change. That said, eSIM technology is ready and eSIM swapping is quite easy, and could become easier with some interface improvements. The issues with eSIM re-issuance are the biggest hurdle, but those fall on the carriers.
There’s already an app called Airalo that lets you buy eSIMs in different countries. You don’t have to visit a shop to get a SIM which is better because in many countries the SIM shops will rip tourists off and/or there will be a language barrier issue.
Newest iPhones already come without SIM cards. They use ESIM modules. My phone has a sim slot that is empty. That space can be utilized to put in another useful chip, sensor or shrink the device dimensions.
Edit: you can still enroll in a different carrier when traveling with an ESIM because they’re often dual ESIM modules and the way to do it through GUI is trivial.
> And my money is that they'll use whatever volume they free up to mindlessly make the phone thinner.
Thinner is absolutely better. The ergonomics and lightness of the iPhones 6 through 8 are far superior to the thick and heavy iPhones Pro of today. Without Jony Ive at the design helm to push the "single slab of glass" vision, the thickness and weight has been gradually creeping upward for years now to cram in more batteries and hardware. A return to thin iPhones would be a good thing.
> if I'm traveling I can just buy a SIM card at a kiosk and pop it in
If you're traveling you sometimes need to show your passport and fill out forms in a foreign language (looking at you, Germany). Adding eSIM is a lot easier, and will let you keep your regular phone connected when someone rings you (which is not happening a lot lately) or sends you a code via SMS.
There are many reasons to keep SIM cards but traveling is not one of them.
It's not a major problem for many people visiting Germany since roaming charges no longer apply within EU and you can carry your operator's plan to other EU countries, which IMO eliminates the need to buy a new SIM card altogether for many people.
It only sucks if you come from somewhere else not in EU. Even then operators (iirc at least Vodafone) offer remote verification of documents over a video call, so it's not as painful as it might seem to be. I don't see how eSIM would make this easier, since the main pain point of verifying your identity will remain.
Traveling is absolutely one of them! You're making getting a local SIM sound much more difficult than it is; even in places like Germany the process is pretty quick and most places aren't anything more than give-currency-get-card. It's also very convenient to have a local phone number as many people are not excited about making an international call to tell you your table is ready (the alternative here is being forced into the panopticon of WhatsApp). It also encapsulates the trip nicely, nobody I give my number to while I'm there can call me when I get home unless I give them my real number.
Plenty of countries don't allow no-locals to buy a sim or don't allow them to by a "good" sim so you get a local to buy a sim and then they give you the sim. Not going to work for eSim.
I also used to keep an extra sim for friends visiting. Can't do that with an eSim
> And my money is that they'll use whatever volume they free up to mindlessly make the phone thinner.
For some reason this is what the phone manufacturers seem to think that people want and I don't know why. I don't think getting thinner and smaller phones has given me any extra value in the past decade. I would rather have a thicker phone with bigger battery.
eSIMs can be bad or good. I hope eSIMs eventually reduce carriers to a network you can choose to connect to, like your wifi. Choose it, choose a plan set, enter payment, switch plans, done. Hell you could have multi-plans simultaneously.
Travel to a new country? Same thing. No apps should even be required, it should be a native OS functionality.
TBH the entire concept of a SIM isn't needed anymore, cellular networks should become like wifi networks, and should be as easy to switch between too, complete with phone number portability.
People remember the bad old days of CDMA where a phone was bound to a network and there was no way to change it's internal esim. It doesn't have to be that way and most of the world doesn't do phone locking that much or at all anymore, much like your phone's wifi.
When cell networks become like wifi, the government excuses for KYC to buy fucking cell service would be reduced even further.
eSIMs would make it incredibly easy to switch between mobile phone providers. Startups like airalo.com exist already that magically enroll you with the foreign country's local carrier even before your train/flight's taken off. Roaming around would be so seamless, and there's no dicking around acquiring SIMs by handing handover your IDs to different vendors with questionable document security measures all over the world.
I don't have an iphone but I side with apple this time.
Using credentials(esim) for accessing phone networks looks much easier and practical than physical tokens. No need to wait 2 weeks to switch companies. No need to check if your phone supports dual sims, and which slot is the one with 4G/5G. Security won't be worse, remeber that sim swapping already exist.
It's a win for consumers. Would anyone use a physical token to access a wifi network? Even corporate wifi networks use credentials or digital certificates.
So use an Android. You have hundreds of manufacturers to choose from. People love Apple precisely because of their purist vision, and that's what made them the most valuable public company on earth.
While I love (and sometimes use) eSIMs, the physical SIM has a huge advantage in that it gives me freedom. It's the revolution that GSM brought: just take your SIM and move it to a different phone. No permission required.
Arguably we've become slaves to ecosystems of either Apple or Google at this point, as pretty much nobody uses a phone as "just a phone", you need to have an account with one of those behemoths in order to use just about any app. But still. The physical SIM is (was?) one of the last remnants of the freedom we had to switch phones.
I share your concerns but at the same time I think, why would we even need a SIM? Isn't it simply a device for accessing account on someones system?
We don't have SIMs for ADSL or Fiber internet? We don't have SIMs for Reddit ot Twitter? Why would we have SIMs accessing GSM networks? There's no fundamental reason why we simply don't sign in into these networks like signing in to HN.
Surely, it adds a layer of anonymity and freedom where you simply use the system by paying it however there's an ongoing trend all over the world of de-anonymisation. In many places they are asking for ID and other documents in order to provide you with a SIM.
Physical SIM now means, it's yet another obsolete tech that costs money and takes space inside the devices only to sustain anonymity that is no longer desired.
SIM is just another causality on the way towards the tightly controlled world.
IMHO, it needs to happen at some point but we also need to rethink our rights in a world that is run by these huge networks.
Wouldn't be nice if our phones could have simply scanned for the networks, receive the offers from the available networks, pay and start using it?
Because SIMs require the physical card. You cannot forge a SIM without the SIM itself. There's a physical second factor. Usernames and passwords get leaked all the time, and since Reddit et al are meant to be accessed by multiple devices, device-locking them would be antithetical and anti-consumer.
A phone service is implicitly device-locked (well, doesn't have to be, but it doesn't make sense to allow multiple devices per number anyway). Just using device credentials could allow anyone to log in with that information and use your subscription or pose as you.
As for ADSL or other forms of internet, there is already a second factor - ISPs generally know from which vicinity you are connecting from, and when you log in with your account information in your modem, they can match what's on your account to your physical "drop" and assert that it is at least within the same neighborhood - again, creating a physical second factor. This is also why your internet service generally needs to be "moved" whenever you change your residence.
A SIM card allows the freedom as the GP mentioned, without requiring someone from the centralized authority to process the request somehow.
There is a huge difference if you think about it for a bit.
> I share your concerns but at the same time I think, why would we even need a SIM?
In the Before Times: handy for travel. Having a (e)SIM for your personal number (but perhaps disable data), and when you arrive at your destination just pop in a new physical SIM for local data (and calling).
> We don't have SIMs for ADSL or Fiber internet?
I wish we did. At least for ADSL you can use PPPoE to login into a network with whatever hardware you wish to use instead of the telco's often janky, underpowered stuff. With fibre (GPON) they often lock in the MAC of the optic, so good luck using something else besides whatever is provided. If you're lucky you can remove the SFP module and put it into whatever you want.
This may not be useful for 99% of the population, but given this is HN we're on, I think a lot of folks can appreciate being 'hardware agnostic'.
Otherwise we're back to the 1960s when only Officially Approved™ equipment can be connected:
Fiber is actually quite complex. Most residential fiber going in today is GPON, and those systems are authenticated by the ONT, which is somewhat analogous to a hardwired SIM. Theoretically, you could reverse engineer the ONT and create your own, but you can expect to get your account closed if they catch you.
Then you have companies like AT&T who also force you to use their godawful routers and actively work to close off methods that allow using your own router.
And if you have metro-E, chances are the ISP provides their own media converter. Doesn't matter that they charge a $12k install fee and $1200/mo (for 500/500 - actual Comcast bill in Nashville, TN), they still won't hand you an SFP+ module.
The reason for it is because they are physically provided to your house so it would be redundant, but if that wasn't a case, imagine if we did have SIM for ADSL or Fiber. Getting access to your Internet service wherever you go without extra charges.
> We don't have SIMs for Reddit ot Twitter?
> Why would we have SIMs accessing GSM networks? There's no fundamental reason why we simply don't sign in into these networks like signing in to HN.
We have login and password, which are like SIM, but you can memorize them.
Imagine if your access to Reddit, Twitter, HN was tied to your computer, because that's essentially what you're advocating for.
> Arguably we've become slaves to ecosystems of either Apple or Google at this point
I’m far more worried about the SIM cards than Apple or Google.
Did you know that SIM cards run Java? Or that they can send text messages from your phone directly to the baseband without going through the phone itself? Your SIM is probably sending data to your carrier without you knowing. ( https://scribe.rip/telecom-expert/what-is-at-t-doing-at-1111... )
Get rid of SIM cards and let’s move everything to purely digital number porting. That doesn’t mean you can’t add or change your provider when you travel, it just means you do it through the user interface instead of removing a little card that runs Java and has access to your baseband.
> Get rid of SIM cards and let’s move everything to purely digital number porting. That doesn’t mean you can’t add or change your provider when you travel, it just means you do it through the user interface instead of removing a little card that runs Java and has access to your baseband.
Here a different perceptive on this.
SIM: Great! my phone just broke and I need to call my insurance to get it replaced. Oh lucky I saved my older phone! That is so perfect because I can take the SIM from my primary phone and put it in the older phone. viola it works! all of that take within 5 mins.
Without SIM: Great! my phone just broke and I need to call my insurance to get it replaced. Oh lucky I still have my older phone... oh wait, they don't have a SIM. So I am stuck without my phone for a week and need to have access to my phone now! Wait let me see if I can open my older phone and see what I can do. turns on yay it still works... no cellular signal? Oh right right, I forgot this phone don't have SIM. Oh ok I guess I have to go through the internal app to get it over to this phone. Why this app kept failing?! C'mon I just need my phone to work because I am expecting calls for potential future job that I might get it! two weeks later with new phone at the door Great... I didn't get the job because the mobile company and insurance been dragging this long as possible. All of this might take two weeks.
This is why people favors SIM because it can be taken out and put in other phone within minutes. In other side, people will be stuck without phone for a while because of this stupidity.
Sure, but the sim doesn't have access to the main CPU, main memory, storage, or sensors (without help from an app which can just as easily leak data without help from the sim) I fail to see how it compromises security any more than an eSIM.
The full portability won't be the same across multiple regions, especially internationally. Also, there is a good chance it gets tied to the device/contract you are on, similar to how the phone contracts in the US were a few years ago.
To transfer an eSIM to your new iPhone, you can scan the QR code your network provider gave you, use your network provider's iPhone app or install an assigned mobile data plan. When your mobile data plan is activated on your new iPhone, the plan on your previous iPhone will deactivate.
There’s also https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT210655: Find out how to transfer an eSIM or physical SIM from your previous iPhone to an eSIM on your new iPhone. You can also convert your physical SIM to an eSIM on your iPhone.
I think phones still can be SIM-locked, but AFAIK nothing changes there with eSIMs.
I just got a new iPhone and transferring a prepaid T-Mobile (US) eSIM from my old iPhone was not supported. T-Mobile say it themselves on their website.
> but AFAIK nothing changes there with eSIMs.
For all the advantages of eSIM, this is absolutely not true.
> It's the revolution that GSM brought: just take your SIM and move it to a different phone. No permission required.
This is not really true:
1. SIM-lock is a thing, where providers prevent you from using the phone with another SIM (because they sold you the phone below cost and you're paying it back through your subscription cost)
2. IMEI lock is a thing too, unfortunately. The situation might be different now but in 2011/2012 it was near impossible to use a local SIM in your phone in Japan because phone providers wanted to sell you a phone with a SIM so you can't use your desired phone.
> If you have purchased a recent smartphone directly from AT&T or T-Mobile, then you very likely have nothing to worry about here. However, if you’re using an unlocked device or a device on a custom ROM, then you’ll want to pay attention to what’s coming. Since AT&T whitelists devices for VoLTE compatibility, you won’t be able to BYOD to the carrier starting February 2022 unless the carrier changes its practices or whitelists a lot more devices.
This was my thoughts as well. It seems like we just drove around in a circle and ended up back where we have to contact the provider when we change phones.
I'm actually more worried about a different problem - I don't care about removing the physical SIM slot but I'm really concerned about halving the amount of numbers someone can have on a single device.
Phone numbers are an utterly terrible system. Having to give a single number out to everyone is a stupid beyond belief design that we just tolerate year after year. That SIM-based 2FA exists makes this even worse.
Apple has already shone a light on this and basically shown their customers that having a single primary-key-for-contact circulate to everyone is insane - which is why they now have the private relay for e-mail. I have my own reservations about the relay, but we really should move to single-number-per-contact and make that the norm.
And yes, I realise this wouldn't be supported by the current phone networks, which is why Apple/Google need to be the people to introduce a vendor-agnostic system as a layer above the current phone networks (akin to a private relay for phones).
This is not unprecedented - they've collaborated on a lot of standards before (matter is a recent example that comes to mind).
Multiple numbers is already technically possible and does not require eSIM. It does require the carrier to innovate and actually do some engineering though, and there's no market pressure for them to do so.
FYI, iPhone 13 generation devices already have 2 eSIMs, as in you can have dual standby without a physical SIM. I'm not a fan of this direction but I don't think we're going to lose dual SIM support.
I haven't thought about this too deeply, but I was thinking if you can have every phone come with "free" global network access - just data. i.e. get rid of the current tech for voice calls, so that all phone calls will be over a VOIP type service. And you can't use the phone without an active account with one of the providers that participate in this global access program. Each provider can bill other providers on the backend when a roaming subscriber uses their network.
> It's the revolution that GSM brought: just take your SIM and move it to a different phone. No permission required.
In virtually all countries sans a couple of dictatorships and other authoritarian regimes, you have many network providers to choose to buy an eSIM from - the US alone has 109 MVNOs plus the five network providers per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_mobile_v.... You also have the right to have your phone number ported.
When you want to switch your phone and your provider does not allow you to request a new eSIM profile, you can switch both the phone and the provider.
There are many things to criticize about modern phone markets - the lack of a right to root your phone and the lack of portability between app stores (not just purchases, but also stuff like game progress!) are the most important ones - but the switch to eSIM is not a problem at all.
Where I live (Germany) this is completely unfeasible and untrustworthy for yet another reason: telcos and ISPs (the big telcos here are ISPs as well). There are not many industries where contract agreements are handled by electronic and manual processes so unreliably, erroneous and intransparently as they are at ISPs and telcos. I wouldn't trust them with managing an eSIM for me ever. Given how important a phone number is these days, again, never. When the simplest processes don't work (point in case: wanted to change a prepaid plan online (should be possible) -- it was not possible, buttons simply greyed out for no reason and/or missing, customer rep totally clueless).
There’s still IMEI locks. A lot of prepaid carriers in Europe won’t or can’t sell you a SIM card for a US phone (one man claimed it was due to carriers trying to reduce phone theft). Note, my phone was fully paid for, and therefor unlocked.
With my Samsung Android phone I had to call my carrier's customer support and obtain the unlock code from them. So it wasn't unlocked automatically after it was fully paid for. When I traveled to Europe I just bought a local carrier SIM from a vending machine at the airport.
You don't need a google account to use an android phone, there are fantastic open source apps on f-droid, and you can even access the play store without a google account using aurora store. If you have root you can fully degoogle (PITA but gratifying), even without it's a big privacy upgrade to just disable the google apps and log out of google.
But it's so easy to move an eSIM to a different phone - if this suddenly stopped you'd get a lot of public backlash, much like if moving a physical SIM stopped working. In the meantime, this works just fine switching eSIMs between devices, so your concern is just hypothetical, or have I missed something?
In EU, an eSIM gives you the same "rights" as a physical SIM.
The biggest difference is that a physical SIM gives you a slightly higher level of security, at least in theory (then, phone carriers do a lot to screw this up anyway).
> eSIM gives you the same "rights" as a physical SIM.
What does this mean in practice though? Some carriers already charge to reissue an eSIM.
With a physical SIM you can use the same one until you break it. An eSIM is "consumed" when it is provisioned into a phone and you need the carrier's cooperation to get a new one which gives them the option to charge or just be assholes in general.
Get a Huawei !! It's actually liberating: nothing Google made works on those, so you're forcefully put on a Google diet, it's not Apple, Huawei stuff are only really good if you'in China: you're stuck with F-Droid and the Aurora Store, surviving as you can without ANY integrated ecosystem.
It seems silly but I never felt so free, esp after I turned on an all-blocking firewall that only whitelist the apps I want, when I want.
Last time I was in SE Asia it wasn't uncommon to see people carrying multiple SIM cards. They were sold cheap and providers were constantly undercutting each other on mobile data. This was almost a decade ago now, but given how Asian variants of phones still have dual SIM slots I'm guessing it's still common.
I have 4 SIM cards from 4 different countries that I need to keep. Mostly because I have bank accounts in those countries and banks either dislike foreign mobile phone numbers or accept them but then are unable to send any 2fa tokens quickly enough to those foreign phone numbers for the 2fa tokens to still be valid.
So, I actually wish I had a quadruple sim phone, as it is I have two dual sim phones to handle this (with one that mostly stays at home).
The viewpoint of never needing to change sim cards is very US centric (or better said, affluent people in a lot of other countries tend to need multiple SIM cards).
Need to send my phone to repair soon, if they say it will take more than a day then I will rent a phone from them. I can put my current sim in their replacement phone in a few seconds. Can't imagine how long it would take with the eSim.
"You don't do it so often" is not an argument for eSims
Oh you think the cookie bs right now is bad for your privacy, can't wait for this eSIM shit show to come to light in a few year, it will be absolute privacy nightmare.
The e-SIM provisioning process is under the control of the carrier. They give you a QR code (or SM-DP string) which you scan/enter, your phone then contacts the carrier and after some back and forth acquires cryptographic keys which are stored in the eSIM chip.
There is no way to extract these cryptographic keys and enter them into another phone. Instead, you have to repeat the whole process and get a new QR code from the carrier. They may charge for this, or just be a pain in general and make it difficult or refuse for whatever reason.
I can see them taking advantage of this to prevent travellers using local SIMs for example - sure you can delete your eSIM and get a local one, but getting your own eSIM back will be difficult or outright impossible if you're still travelling (they may require physical ID verification, etc).
This is absolutely not true, there are a ton of phones with better DAC/amp combos than the one on the Apple dongle (and even when the dongle is better, it's frequently not better by enough to be audibly different). Unfortunately some of the best analog audio came on phones that were made by LG who threw in the towel last year.
It's very good indeed, but last I recall it measured slightly worse than the built-in 3.5mm Jack in previous iPhones. But it still likely exceeds transparency especially for the form-factor and use case.
I don't understand this sentiment, instead of pleading with a phone manufacturer to implement certain features why not put your money where your mouth is and, you know, buy any of the pleothra of phones out there that do have a headphone jack.
It's just tongue-in-cheek banter, don't take it too literally. Besides, Apple devices make a sizeable portion of the market and have 'ecosystem' buy-in features that many other phones (w or w/o h jacks) don't have.
Yes, because the ONLY feature I take into account when buying a new device that I carry in my pocket literally every day of my life is how good the headphone jack is.
Because it's not possible. I need a ~5.5" Android phone, with SD Card, OLED, 2 SIM, headphone jack and 3 years of software updates. Not sure there is a phone like that, so I don't know what I will be doing when my current phone dies.
I can't understand why anyone would want this. Being able to physically swap sims so I don't ever have to deal with carrier customer service is a /good/ thing, especially when it's in the carrier's interest to make this as difficult as possible.
I tried to activate an iPhone on an existing Google Fi plan using eSIM, and it was a nightmare. The frontline support is responsive, but can't do anything about it. The specialists I was escalated to were useless, and only reachable by email every day or two.
After a week of this nonsense, it occurred to me that maybe I could start over with a physical SIM card. I chatted with frontline support again, and he said he was positive that would work. (So why didn't anyone suggest that?!) I couldn't use the old card, because it was clearly beyond their capabilities to reactivate a perfectly good SIM card, but I was able to buy a new one at Best Buy and complete the process in about five minutes.
I would have swapped the card in the first place and been blissfully ignorant of the eSIM fiasco, but I somehow had it in my head that the iPhone used a smaller card than the five-year old phone it was replacing. It may not be eSIM's fault, per se, but if the design is dependent on carrier competence, it's fatally flawed, as far as I'm concerned.
You are aware you can have 10 or more eSIMs plans on an iPhone, right?
You are free to swap between them as you wish? You are only locked into a single carrier if you purchase the iPhone thru that carrier. Always purchasing and unlocked phone is what solves this.
All of this depends on the good graces of the company that wrote the software, and I don't see how they can be trusted over good ol' physically removing a card and putting a different one in. Especially when they have a track record of being abusive to customers.
I mean, cars are a great example of a technological advancement that absolutely ruined lots of places around the world:
- city centers, rendered noisy, rotted out of businesses, and replaced with parking lots
- rural areas rendered completely car-dependent since roads are no longer walking-friendly
- small towns who lost their entire downtown strip because people would rather drive their car to wal-mart
- millions of pedestrian deaths worldwide per year because cars make it very easy to "accidentally" kill people
So... I guess the lesson is that it is exactly that kind of debate, and that there are pros and cons on both sides?
SIM Swapping attacks are not performed by physically stealing a SIM from someone’s phone. They usually involve having someone who works at the carrier making changes in the system to route calls/data to a different IMEI. Physical or eSIM would be irrelevant in that case.
SIM swapping has nothing to do with a physical SIM. It's convincing the carrier to reissue a new SIM and associate it to the previous account. It can be done just as well with e-SIMs - in that case the carrier will give you an SM-DP code instead of a physical SIM.
I, for one, would ditch telecoms in a heartbeat if this were a thing.
Why?
> VZ Msg: Introducing Verizon Custom Experience. VZ content & offers are more relevant using web browsing & app usage info. For info or to opt-out: m.vzw.com/CE
Received this earlier this month. Verizon and others can go fuck themselves.
This is most definitely part of it. Google dipped its toes into the ISP world with Google Fiber and made a big splash. Now Apple is starting to feel confident they can deploy their own phone service. They can just deploy their service using current infrastructure (already happens a lot in Europe with low-cost ISPs). And they have such weight that they will eventually force ISPs to do their bidding, lest Apple leaves them. You wouldn't want to be the network where iPhones are not supported.
You're misinterpreting what eSIMs are if you think they provide a new way to connect to the network, they don't. They are simply a new sim form factor, so step two in your analysis is unrealistic as the mobile equipment is still owned by mobile operators. There's literally no difference with current sim other than the sim being embedded in the device and the users being allowed to install multiple profiles on it.
I don’t think they were assuming eSIMs provide a new type of connectivity. I think they were referring to the fact that these embedded SIMs are more integrated into the device and therefore physically agnostic to the mobile operator of choice. This would make switching from e.g. Verizon to Apple like switching from from Netflix to Disney+ – much easier since it’s fully software-based. For Apple that would be easy to bundle with the rest of their services. Yet another thing that will retain customers in their ecosystem.
No headphone jack. No SD slot. Soon no charging port (wireless). Now no sim car. How soon before there are no plugs whatsoever? Once everything is wireless then apple, through software, can finally take absolute control over how and what is connected to their phones. Want to communicate with or even charge an iPhone? You better be running approved and licensed software. Then the phone can be physically locked like a seamless vault, defeating any potential for repair: the ideal consumer product.
It’s not like that kind of control isn’t possible with the ports installed today.
The Bluetooth can ask what devices it’s connected to, the SIM card reader can read which SIM card is inserted and the lightning port can ask what’s at the other end of the cable.
My android phone still has a USB port on it that comports with USB standards. Google cannot limit which devices can charge my phone, which USB cables I use to tether my devices.
Famously Apple used to prevent iPhones from being charged with “non-lienced” lighting cables.
They seemed to have slackened of since then, but for a while there was a 50/50 odds of a cheap 3rd party cable causing iOS to throw up an error message and refuse to charge.
2023. Apple's been telegraphing the move to portless non-"pro" devices for years now.
> Want to communicate with or even charge an iPhone? You better be running approved and licensed software.
In fact, charging options will finally be standard across their product line — Qi for non-pro devices, USB-C for pro devices. Communication will happen via Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and UWB.
This explains why Apple's been dragging its feet on switching from Lightning to USB-C. No sense switching if you're killing it in a few years, and it can only anger customers.
I think we'll see a big rise in phishing attacks if this comes to pass. Unlike physical SIMs where you can move them about yourself, you often have to call support to change an eSIM. So, mobile companies are going to have to make it even easier to change eSIMs. And it's not like mobile providers are known for security. T-Mobile gave up my personal details to the world along with 50 million others a few months back.
Depending on the country they cannot, in mine there are regulations, where they cant/wont move my number without my fingerprint verification and otp verification from an existing device
People are saying this is bad because you won't be able to swap phones without relying on the carrier to provision a new eSIM for you. I have the same gut reaction, but with my current physical SIM, I have to install the carrier's app, and there are many phones which don't work with my carrier, despite being unlocked phones and unlocked SIMs. And let's not forget that locking phones and SIMs has been common practice for awhile. So, while I don't have a good feeling about this, I'm not sure that the freedom of choice argument really holds water.
Your mobile network provider demands you to install an app? Thats… unique in my UK based experience.
Over here any provider apps are entirely optional and just a convenience AFAIK; and phones you’ve bought outright (or reached the end of the contract period on) are unlocked (or you have the right to have them unlock it).
Thats why this is a big change and potnetially bad news for many smaller UK operators who don’t currently have eSIM support baked into phones
I have literally never had to worry about my phone not taking the SIM out of the box. Put the SIM in, maybe reboot, and I'm off to the races. Is this a USA carrier thing??
Readit News
> Apple's former design chief Jony Ive once envisioned the iPhone as becoming a "single slab of glass," and the SIM card slot's removal would be another step towards a seamless design...
I really do hate purist visions like that.
> Taking out the slot would also free up some valuable internal space in the iPhone — every bit counts.
And my money is that they'll use whatever volume they free up to mindlessly make the phone thinner.
That is exactly what apple doesn't want you to do. They don't want users making deals with local ISPs for service. They want in on that transaction. Virtual SIMs, controlled by phone manufacturers, will allow them to exercise a degree of control over wandering users. If you are a local ISP, you better be part of the program if you want to sell your services to apple's devices. And most users will be OK with this. They will probably appreciated not having to buy a local SIM cars. They will enjoy how easily their virtual SIM connected to the local ISP and hooked them into a the prearranged roaming deal for apple devices. They won't question the price because they will have no input into a negotiation that happened years before they arrived in the country. All that is left for them is to blindly pay the bills.
Google supports eSIM. Google can sell you cell service for your iPhone from the couch.
If any phone manufacturer is trying to compete with the carriers, it would look a lot like Google, which made a global MVNO.
Yes, there is usually a business motive behind every business decision. The GSMA makes it sound like the carriers want it, as well as the phone manufacturers:
“Simpler device setup without the need to insert or replace a SIM card;
Devices that can operate independently of a tethered smartphone, with their own subscriptions;
A range of new, enhanced mobile-connected devices.”
Emphasis on “with their own subscriptions”
https://www.gsma.com/esim/about/
How does the phone manufacturer have anything to do with it? My only wish is to support multiple eSIMs, as now I only have one physical SIM slot and one eSIM.
SIMs come from the phone company. How could it be otherwise as that's where the phone number comes from, and that's how the local physical network determines whether you're allowed to connect or not:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIM_card
Unless Apple is planning to become a MVNO (or building out their own cell towers), they cannot provide any information for network connectivity.
eSIMs aren’t some apple run “program” you have to take part in.
[ citation needed ]
eSIM is already a standard and as far as I can tell, Apple gets no kickbacks/etc for users using it. I can go to att.com right now and swap to an eSIM if I were so inclined, for free.
I wonder if Apple won't just bulk-buy bandwidth and take care of the customer experience.
Imagine your phone just... working globally.
A SIM is not a embodiment of an iPhone’s identity. Maybe it was in the 90s, but today it’s so much more. The SIM is more like your iPhone’s credentials for accessing one network. You can change SIMs, change your access token for one network, but you are making no bigger impact on your phone’s “identity” than if you were to change Wi-Fi networks.
List of Identity related things that change when you change your SIM
List of Identity relates things that do not change when changing your SIMToday if your phone fails, you can pop a sim in another phone and regain your phone service identity within minutes. No SIM, it could take days or even weeks.
> The SIM is more like your iPhone’s credentials for accessing one network.
That's what I meant. Anyone with any familiarity with SIM cards knows it's no personality chip that brings everything over with it, and if it were such a thing it would probably be pretty annoying.
It's funny this commenter accuses Apple of mindlessness when they did not look up that the iPhone 13 and 13 Pro are thicker than their respective counterparts from last year.
https://www.apple.com/iphone/compare/?modelList=iphone13,iph...
I would speculate that removal of the physical SIM card is more likely to be about one (or a combination) of:
* Apple taking even more control over the device
* Making it marginally more difficult to switch to another brand's ecosystem
* Resilience (e.g. water/dust proofing).
It takes me 30 seconds from buying an eSIM in any country worldwide from their app, paying with Apple Pay, to having it active and working with data and voice line.
I travel a lot and before it'd take 15 minutes to sometimes an hour of driving to a phone shop or finding it at the airport, getting your passport copied (fraud risk), getting foreign money in cash out to pay, and handing a stranger your phone.
Big improvement for me. And I can run 2x eSIMs at the same time!
Dual SIM devices were available for a long time.
Yes, most of them were dual standy sim, which meant that you wouldn't get calls from one while talking on another.
Then you tap on the one you want, select the package you want, pay for it from that menu and then bam you are connected.
All without having an existing Wi-Fi or Cellular data plan.
There needs to be some basic/back-end service that allows for this type of communication to people not already subscribed to a mobile network.
And what if those menus are in some foreign language I don't understand? And how would that work with cash? I'd have to fork over my credit card (assuming that's even an acceptable form of payment) and may end up with a recurring charge for a cell plan in a country I'll visit for a week.
Visions like yours are nice, but my money is what we'll actually get is a far crappier, buggier version.
One impossible-to-replace benefit of physical objects is that you can use physical control to place limits on them. Pay with cash, no recurring changes, move the card, move the service. Theoretically you could do that in software, but practically you won't because those are expensive features that almost always get cut.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_SIM
This change is bad for the customer no matter what. It's similar to me to what Verizon had during CDMA days.
(For iPhones to work on your network you would HAVE to sell bandwidth to Apple who then uses it for international roaming. The user really is connecting to and using Apple's Network, the local ISP only has the priviledge of serving packets to Apple devices.)
I don't understand this comment.
Pre-COVID I used to travel a lot for business, with an iPhone.
iPhone has physical SIM + virtual SIM.
My "home" SIM would stay in my iPhone.
Meanwhile I would have one of the many eSIM apps (Truephone, GigSky etc.) on my phone, which I would activate for international data for X days which would enable me to continue doing VoIP and messaging apps as normal.
I don't see the need to go buy local SIMs (and indeed, in some countries, buying SIMs as a foreigner is difficult for legal not language barrier reasons).
After about 30 minutes of frustration, I saw that there was a physical SIM slot. We restarted the whole process to buy an unlocked iPhone and swapped the SIM card. That process took 3 minutes.
I also have no problems swapping my SIM between an Android, Pinephone, Pinepine Pro, and Librem 5 to test out various things. Or buying a used/new phone and not having to visit my carrier's store to switch the eSIM. Or permentantly swapping my SIM to a Pinephone. Every time I have had to visit my carrier's store, I have to dedicate an hour to it. I also REALLY don't want Best Buy or some other thir party handling my PII to swap an eSIM.
I will keep my physical SIM, thank you.
Physical SIMs can be swapped in seconds.
Was your experience of transfer simpler?
Have you ever switched SIMs continuously, in an ad-hoc way, because you had more SIMs than phones? This isn't that unusual if you're on a road trip or, especially, if you're relocating.
It took [large US mobile operator] THREE days and multiple conversations to get the eSIM working. Multiple support techs either told me eSIM's did not exist or were not compatible with [large US mobile operator]. I sure hope this has improved in the US since my experience.
What is the eSIM experience in other countries?
Maybe HN readers don't applaud knee-jerkλυ something just because it's digital.
As for which is "more convenient" that is what should be proved, not taken for granted. And this includes a lot of cases (travelling, using 2 phones, and so on).
[yes I know some deeply buried settings can override the above]
Apple have a long history of not being afraid of getting ahead of the curve. Sometimes it works out (removal of floppy drive), sometimes it doesn't (lack of ports on the previous gen MBP).
Deleted Comment
Personally, I would also prefer to have the SIM-tray as a backup and for travel. Most prepaid plans in Europe still don't support eSIMs.
Edit: you can still enroll in a different carrier when traveling with an ESIM because they’re often dual ESIM modules and the way to do it through GUI is trivial.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT209044
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212780
Thinner is absolutely better. The ergonomics and lightness of the iPhones 6 through 8 are far superior to the thick and heavy iPhones Pro of today. Without Jony Ive at the design helm to push the "single slab of glass" vision, the thickness and weight has been gradually creeping upward for years now to cram in more batteries and hardware. A return to thin iPhones would be a good thing.
If you're traveling you sometimes need to show your passport and fill out forms in a foreign language (looking at you, Germany). Adding eSIM is a lot easier, and will let you keep your regular phone connected when someone rings you (which is not happening a lot lately) or sends you a code via SMS.
There are many reasons to keep SIM cards but traveling is not one of them.
It only sucks if you come from somewhere else not in EU. Even then operators (iirc at least Vodafone) offer remote verification of documents over a video call, so it's not as painful as it might seem to be. I don't see how eSIM would make this easier, since the main pain point of verifying your identity will remain.
Plenty of countries don't allow no-locals to buy a sim or don't allow them to by a "good" sim so you get a local to buy a sim and then they give you the sim. Not going to work for eSim.
I also used to keep an extra sim for friends visiting. Can't do that with an eSim
For some reason this is what the phone manufacturers seem to think that people want and I don't know why. I don't think getting thinner and smaller phones has given me any extra value in the past decade. I would rather have a thicker phone with bigger battery.
Travel to a new country? Same thing. No apps should even be required, it should be a native OS functionality.
TBH the entire concept of a SIM isn't needed anymore, cellular networks should become like wifi networks, and should be as easy to switch between too, complete with phone number portability.
People remember the bad old days of CDMA where a phone was bound to a network and there was no way to change it's internal esim. It doesn't have to be that way and most of the world doesn't do phone locking that much or at all anymore, much like your phone's wifi.
When cell networks become like wifi, the government excuses for KYC to buy fucking cell service would be reduced even further.
Using credentials(esim) for accessing phone networks looks much easier and practical than physical tokens. No need to wait 2 weeks to switch companies. No need to check if your phone supports dual sims, and which slot is the one with 4G/5G. Security won't be worse, remeber that sim swapping already exist.
It's a win for consumers. Would anyone use a physical token to access a wifi network? Even corporate wifi networks use credentials or digital certificates.
So use an Android. You have hundreds of manufacturers to choose from. People love Apple precisely because of their purist vision, and that's what made them the most valuable public company on earth.
While I love (and sometimes use) eSIMs, the physical SIM has a huge advantage in that it gives me freedom. It's the revolution that GSM brought: just take your SIM and move it to a different phone. No permission required.
Arguably we've become slaves to ecosystems of either Apple or Google at this point, as pretty much nobody uses a phone as "just a phone", you need to have an account with one of those behemoths in order to use just about any app. But still. The physical SIM is (was?) one of the last remnants of the freedom we had to switch phones.
We don't have SIMs for ADSL or Fiber internet? We don't have SIMs for Reddit ot Twitter? Why would we have SIMs accessing GSM networks? There's no fundamental reason why we simply don't sign in into these networks like signing in to HN.
Surely, it adds a layer of anonymity and freedom where you simply use the system by paying it however there's an ongoing trend all over the world of de-anonymisation. In many places they are asking for ID and other documents in order to provide you with a SIM.
Physical SIM now means, it's yet another obsolete tech that costs money and takes space inside the devices only to sustain anonymity that is no longer desired.
SIM is just another causality on the way towards the tightly controlled world.
IMHO, it needs to happen at some point but we also need to rethink our rights in a world that is run by these huge networks.
Wouldn't be nice if our phones could have simply scanned for the networks, receive the offers from the available networks, pay and start using it?
A phone service is implicitly device-locked (well, doesn't have to be, but it doesn't make sense to allow multiple devices per number anyway). Just using device credentials could allow anyone to log in with that information and use your subscription or pose as you.
As for ADSL or other forms of internet, there is already a second factor - ISPs generally know from which vicinity you are connecting from, and when you log in with your account information in your modem, they can match what's on your account to your physical "drop" and assert that it is at least within the same neighborhood - again, creating a physical second factor. This is also why your internet service generally needs to be "moved" whenever you change your residence.
A SIM card allows the freedom as the GP mentioned, without requiring someone from the centralized authority to process the request somehow.
There is a huge difference if you think about it for a bit.
In the Before Times: handy for travel. Having a (e)SIM for your personal number (but perhaps disable data), and when you arrive at your destination just pop in a new physical SIM for local data (and calling).
> We don't have SIMs for ADSL or Fiber internet?
I wish we did. At least for ADSL you can use PPPoE to login into a network with whatever hardware you wish to use instead of the telco's often janky, underpowered stuff. With fibre (GPON) they often lock in the MAC of the optic, so good luck using something else besides whatever is provided. If you're lucky you can remove the SFP module and put it into whatever you want.
This may not be useful for 99% of the population, but given this is HN we're on, I think a lot of folks can appreciate being 'hardware agnostic'.
Otherwise we're back to the 1960s when only Officially Approved™ equipment can be connected:
* https://www.cybertelecom.org/notes/att_antitrust.htm
Fiber is actually quite complex. Most residential fiber going in today is GPON, and those systems are authenticated by the ONT, which is somewhat analogous to a hardwired SIM. Theoretically, you could reverse engineer the ONT and create your own, but you can expect to get your account closed if they catch you.
Then you have companies like AT&T who also force you to use their godawful routers and actively work to close off methods that allow using your own router.
And if you have metro-E, chances are the ISP provides their own media converter. Doesn't matter that they charge a $12k install fee and $1200/mo (for 500/500 - actual Comcast bill in Nashville, TN), they still won't hand you an SFP+ module.
The reason for it is because they are physically provided to your house so it would be redundant, but if that wasn't a case, imagine if we did have SIM for ADSL or Fiber. Getting access to your Internet service wherever you go without extra charges.
> We don't have SIMs for Reddit ot Twitter? > Why would we have SIMs accessing GSM networks? There's no fundamental reason why we simply don't sign in into these networks like signing in to HN.
We have login and password, which are like SIM, but you can memorize them.
Imagine if your access to Reddit, Twitter, HN was tied to your computer, because that's essentially what you're advocating for.
Deleted Comment
I’m far more worried about the SIM cards than Apple or Google.
Did you know that SIM cards run Java? Or that they can send text messages from your phone directly to the baseband without going through the phone itself? Your SIM is probably sending data to your carrier without you knowing. ( https://scribe.rip/telecom-expert/what-is-at-t-doing-at-1111... )
Get rid of SIM cards and let’s move everything to purely digital number porting. That doesn’t mean you can’t add or change your provider when you travel, it just means you do it through the user interface instead of removing a little card that runs Java and has access to your baseband.
There's a common misconception that SIM == number. That's not the case. The SIM is simply the identity of your device to a carrier.
> a little card that runs Java
I believe (it's now been a few years since I've skimmed the spec) that the eSIM chip can also run Java and download applets.
Here a different perceptive on this.
SIM: Great! my phone just broke and I need to call my insurance to get it replaced. Oh lucky I saved my older phone! That is so perfect because I can take the SIM from my primary phone and put it in the older phone. viola it works! all of that take within 5 mins.
Without SIM: Great! my phone just broke and I need to call my insurance to get it replaced. Oh lucky I still have my older phone... oh wait, they don't have a SIM. So I am stuck without my phone for a week and need to have access to my phone now! Wait let me see if I can open my older phone and see what I can do. turns on yay it still works... no cellular signal? Oh right right, I forgot this phone don't have SIM. Oh ok I guess I have to go through the internal app to get it over to this phone. Why this app kept failing?! C'mon I just need my phone to work because I am expecting calls for potential future job that I might get it! two weeks later with new phone at the door Great... I didn't get the job because the mobile company and insurance been dragging this long as possible. All of this might take two weeks.
This is why people favors SIM because it can be taken out and put in other phone within minutes. In other side, people will be stuck without phone for a while because of this stupidity.
Transfer an eSIM from your previous iPhone
To transfer an eSIM to your new iPhone, you can scan the QR code your network provider gave you, use your network provider's iPhone app or install an assigned mobile data plan. When your mobile data plan is activated on your new iPhone, the plan on your previous iPhone will deactivate.
There’s also https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT210655: Find out how to transfer an eSIM or physical SIM from your previous iPhone to an eSIM on your new iPhone. You can also convert your physical SIM to an eSIM on your iPhone.
I think phones still can be SIM-locked, but AFAIK nothing changes there with eSIMs.
> but AFAIK nothing changes there with eSIMs.
For all the advantages of eSIM, this is absolutely not true.
This is not really true:
1. SIM-lock is a thing, where providers prevent you from using the phone with another SIM (because they sold you the phone below cost and you're paying it back through your subscription cost)
2. IMEI lock is a thing too, unfortunately. The situation might be different now but in 2011/2012 it was near impossible to use a local SIM in your phone in Japan because phone providers wanted to sell you a phone with a SIM so you can't use your desired phone.
https://www.xda-developers.com/t-mobile-att-require-volte-ph...
> If you have purchased a recent smartphone directly from AT&T or T-Mobile, then you very likely have nothing to worry about here. However, if you’re using an unlocked device or a device on a custom ROM, then you’ll want to pay attention to what’s coming. Since AT&T whitelists devices for VoLTE compatibility, you won’t be able to BYOD to the carrier starting February 2022 unless the carrier changes its practices or whitelists a lot more devices.
Phone numbers are an utterly terrible system. Having to give a single number out to everyone is a stupid beyond belief design that we just tolerate year after year. That SIM-based 2FA exists makes this even worse.
Apple has already shone a light on this and basically shown their customers that having a single primary-key-for-contact circulate to everyone is insane - which is why they now have the private relay for e-mail. I have my own reservations about the relay, but we really should move to single-number-per-contact and make that the norm.
And yes, I realise this wouldn't be supported by the current phone networks, which is why Apple/Google need to be the people to introduce a vendor-agnostic system as a layer above the current phone networks (akin to a private relay for phones).
This is not unprecedented - they've collaborated on a lot of standards before (matter is a recent example that comes to mind).
In virtually all countries sans a couple of dictatorships and other authoritarian regimes, you have many network providers to choose to buy an eSIM from - the US alone has 109 MVNOs plus the five network providers per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_mobile_v.... You also have the right to have your phone number ported.
When you want to switch your phone and your provider does not allow you to request a new eSIM profile, you can switch both the phone and the provider.
There are many things to criticize about modern phone markets - the lack of a right to root your phone and the lack of portability between app stores (not just purchases, but also stuff like game progress!) are the most important ones - but the switch to eSIM is not a problem at all.
The biggest difference is that a physical SIM gives you a slightly higher level of security, at least in theory (then, phone carriers do a lot to screw this up anyway).
What does this mean in practice though? Some carriers already charge to reissue an eSIM.
With a physical SIM you can use the same one until you break it. An eSIM is "consumed" when it is provisioned into a phone and you need the carrier's cooperation to get a new one which gives them the option to charge or just be assholes in general.
It seems silly but I never felt so free, esp after I turned on an all-blocking firewall that only whitelist the apps I want, when I want.
So, I actually wish I had a quadruple sim phone, as it is I have two dual sim phones to handle this (with one that mostly stays at home).
The viewpoint of never needing to change sim cards is very US centric (or better said, affluent people in a lot of other countries tend to need multiple SIM cards).
"You don't do it so often" is not an argument for eSims
The e-SIM provisioning process is under the control of the carrier. They give you a QR code (or SM-DP string) which you scan/enter, your phone then contacts the carrier and after some back and forth acquires cryptographic keys which are stored in the eSIM chip.
There is no way to extract these cryptographic keys and enter them into another phone. Instead, you have to repeat the whole process and get a new QR code from the carrier. They may charge for this, or just be a pain in general and make it difficult or refuse for whatever reason.
I can see them taking advantage of this to prevent travellers using local SIMs for example - sure you can delete your eSIM and get a local one, but getting your own eSIM back will be difficult or outright impossible if you're still travelling (they may require physical ID verification, etc).
(bit of sarcasm but I really miss headphone jacks in mobile phones)
Buy a USB-C/Lightning to 3.5mm dongle and leave it permanently attached. Not ideal I know.
But one benefit is that the DAC Apple designed in that dongle is so good that the sound quality far exceeds any phone with a built-in 3.5mm jack.
This is absolutely not true, there are a ton of phones with better DAC/amp combos than the one on the Apple dongle (and even when the dongle is better, it's frequently not better by enough to be audibly different). Unfortunately some of the best analog audio came on phones that were made by LG who threw in the towel last year.
Dead Comment
After a week of this nonsense, it occurred to me that maybe I could start over with a physical SIM card. I chatted with frontline support again, and he said he was positive that would work. (So why didn't anyone suggest that?!) I couldn't use the old card, because it was clearly beyond their capabilities to reactivate a perfectly good SIM card, but I was able to buy a new one at Best Buy and complete the process in about five minutes.
I would have swapped the card in the first place and been blissfully ignorant of the eSIM fiasco, but I somehow had it in my head that the iPhone used a smaller card than the five-year old phone it was replacing. It may not be eSIM's fault, per se, but if the design is dependent on carrier competence, it's fatally flawed, as far as I'm concerned.
- city centers, rendered noisy, rotted out of businesses, and replaced with parking lots - rural areas rendered completely car-dependent since roads are no longer walking-friendly - small towns who lost their entire downtown strip because people would rather drive their car to wal-mart - millions of pedestrian deaths worldwide per year because cars make it very easy to "accidentally" kill people
So... I guess the lesson is that it is exactly that kind of debate, and that there are pros and cons on both sides?
As far as I can tell the physical sim slot is just a complete waste of space, I can’t use it anyway without toggling one of my esims off.
1. Step one: Force everyone to use eSim
2. Step two: Bundle a internet plan through Apple One or whatever Google offers.
3. Step three: Move further to a world where all our entertainment and access to services goes through two players: Apple and Google.
I'm pretty sure in 10 years telecoms will be the next industry to be completely disrupted by FAANG companies.
Just think of how many services that 10 years ago was prohibitively expensive are now extremely cheap:
1. 10~15 years ago, long distances calls used to cost an arm and a leg.
2. SMS was still paid by message sent (in my country at least)
3. Even local calls was expensive.
I had to pay 10x in my local currency to "not" have what I now pay 1x.
Why?
> VZ Msg: Introducing Verizon Custom Experience. VZ content & offers are more relevant using web browsing & app usage info. For info or to opt-out: m.vzw.com/CE
Received this earlier this month. Verizon and others can go fuck themselves.
The Bluetooth can ask what devices it’s connected to, the SIM card reader can read which SIM card is inserted and the lightning port can ask what’s at the other end of the cable.
They seemed to have slackened of since then, but for a while there was a 50/50 odds of a cheap 3rd party cable causing iOS to throw up an error message and refuse to charge.
2023. Apple's been telegraphing the move to portless non-"pro" devices for years now.
> Want to communicate with or even charge an iPhone? You better be running approved and licensed software.
In fact, charging options will finally be standard across their product line — Qi for non-pro devices, USB-C for pro devices. Communication will happen via Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and UWB.
Thats why this is a big change and potnetially bad news for many smaller UK operators who don’t currently have eSIM support baked into phones