Apple said to be preparing for iPhones without SIM card slot in 2022
macrumors.com
macrumors.com
> 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.
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.
The menus will be in whatever language your phone is set to. You can use contactless payment like Apple Pay or Google Pay and there's no recurring charge unless you want there to be one.
You do understand how strange this sounds? Like airdropping files from C:/Downloads to C:/Archive
If I write you a letter on a piece of paper, is it wireless transmission? Mind you, paper has no wires.
Contactless payment is the marketing term for NFC technology. It has nothing to do with you not interacting with other people.
I totally agree that it could have been Apple Pay, Paypal Pay or whatever else Bingus Pay, but it definitely was not contactless, because there was no NFC radio communication involved.
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.)
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.
I then installed Airalo app and bought an eSim in five minutes, still at home. Once I landed, I had 4G service for a week.
On my trip, I was never asked for my (German?) phone number but had received multiple SMS verification codes to my regular line.
Your experience may naturally be different.
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.
Next time I'll just do roaming on a prepaid card from my home country, unfortunately my current provider doesn't support roaming in Germany.
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
It also sells one for my country, so my friends visiting can buy it from them, so I don't need to keep an extra SIM.
So, no, airalo is not an example of why eSims are good
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.
Getting a new eSIM is not terribly complicated. But you have to log in, click through some menues, wait for an SMS code and an email to arrive, wait a couple of minutes.
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
* 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> 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.
I’ve spent a lot of time engineering login pages and thinking about questions of user identity.
So it might be you're basing your knowledge from some fictional show where the writers got it wrong.
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.
Connecting to ATT/Verizon/T-Mobile/Vodafone should be as easy as choosing a Wifi Network.
Carriers (Verizon and Sprint?) tried to improve it, but never really worked and the expense was high.
Compared to AT&T's "take the card out and put it in the new phone" reprogramming it was night and day.
You can say that eSIM is easier than the old CDMA days but it still isn't as easy as SIM swapping.
I go to a conference or hotel, and they can figure out how to have me login to the wifi and pay them. Or not pay them if I am a certain level member of their rewards program or part of a certain group of people attending the conference.
Other than legacy business contracts or lack of will by mobile networks to allow easy switching, it seems it should be just as easy to change which mobile network you are using.
As a side note, I love the cash grab by ATT/Verizon/Tmobile right now where changing your device entitles them to collect an extra $30 "activation" fee from you. Zero labor cost, almost zero compute cost other than changing IMEI in their database, and you still have to part with $30.
This doesn’t make any sense. Anything that can be done using a physical sim, you can do faster with e-sim (input data into fields).
What if you don’t have another physical sim ready to go? It’s the middle of the night and stores are closed. Your car won’t start. You lost your wallet and don’t have currency. Traveling in a foreign nation and don’t know where the SIM store is. (Yes these are extreme situations, but that’s exactly when you need your phone to work)
Who can do it faster? Me? Or the dude I just waited on hold for for 45 minutes (on someone else's phone i borrowed because I'm lucky enough to be around someone who is there to let me use their phone for 45 minutes) sitting in a call center somewhere?
With an eSIM, I'd have to-- at the very least-- do some sort of migration process through a carrier-provided resource. Maybe it's a web-based thing where I can sign in to their site on the old phone and get a QR code to scan on the new one, but I'd be unsurprised if at least some carriers say "gotta come into a store" or put up some sketchy "for your protection" roadblocks. This could be technical incompetence or a dark pattern, but I'm sure they want to keep anything related to bring-your-own-device to be a bit arcane and scary, to encourage customers to buy through the carrier.
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.
Which can, and should change to something better than providing the SSN and passcode of the mobile network primary account holder who “owns” that phone number.
If anything, your experience should lead you to advocate to a quicker change to eSIM, so that your dad can control his phone number without needing someone else’s SSN.
Given that so many things are tied to a phone number (they shouldn't, but are), there should be strong authentication measures to transfer phone numbers.
Your problem isn’t the e-sim, it’s a shitty network.
So no, I'm not going to applaud giving the networks even more power over my ability to switch phones and SIMs. Physical SIMs are nice because I can 99% cut the network out of my decision to switch phones -- all I have to do is pop the SIM into my new phone. I do not want to go through Verizon's, AT&T's, or any other archaic provider's process when dealing with my (or a family member's) phone upgrade.
It's a lot like the headphone jack removal: replace something that works great with a solution that works OK 90% of the time. But 10% of the time you're stuck in an edge case that isn't covered at all by the new, shinier solution.
I wasn't trying to buy a new number, I was trying to transfer an existing one. It doesn't surprise me that they make it as easy as possible to get a new one.
Not that that's unusual, most of the networks are crappy - vodafone was the only UK network I could find that didn't require you to go to one of their stores to get the QR code. Artificial barriers are erected at every turn.
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).
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.
[yes I know some deeply buried settings can override the above]
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?
Verizon has a link on their website that just spits out a QR code. Completely seamless.
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).
Phones already were water proof when they had sim cards and phone jack.
While I never owned an iPhone, those changes annoy me immensely. The reason for it is that Android manufacturers are copying all of that. I'm currently want to update phone, and want one with sd card and phone jack. Those two things make my selection much smaller. And looking at trends looks like very soon it will be similarly gone as physical keyboard is.
Water resistant you mean. Eliminating more holes will just make them more water resistant, it’s a spectrum of course.
As an individual, I agree with you. The industry consensus (initiated by Apple) that the headphone jack ought to go is a great shame for a few reasons and I would happily trade-off some water resistance for its inclusion.
However, when you want to use phones to pull customers into the lucrative world of subscriptions (and the big corps, especially Apple, seem to be heading this way), having a device that is more reliable and less likely to break is very helpful. The longer you can make the device last, the less reason you give the customer to try another, competing brand, and the more you increase the chance that they get pulled into your ecosystem.
We could talk about the ethics and attitude that leads them to locking down the device more and more to increase one-shot longevity instead of making devices repairable. But this is outside of the scope of my original comment.
The original argument I was making was that SIM card removal does seem plausible to me. It fits into a number of trends in Apple devices over the last couple of years, and arbitrarily increasing thinness isn't one of them.
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.
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.
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.
> A virtual SIM is a mobile phone number provided by a mobile network operator that does not require a SIM card to connect phone calls to a user's mobile phone.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIM_card#Other_variants
This isn't about Apple becoming an MVNO, this is about Apple somehow controlling the process of configuring your phone because you no longer have the option to choose a SIM card and insert it yourself.
https://www.t-mobile.com/support/tutorials/topic/esim/activa...
Why do you think you a physical sim for different providers. Because they only work with that provider. Apple can turn the tap off on a class of Sims as it is
That's definitely going to be a step up in user comfort... The average apple user will definitely love it
eSIMs aren’t some apple run “program” you have to take part in.
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”
> Google Fi is a service for US residents only, as of late 2019. [1]
iPhone 12 series was the first to support 5G - launched in Oct 2020. That’s barely over a year ago?
> When outside the United States, cellular phone calls cost $0.20 per minute, data costs the same $10 per gigabyte (i.e. there are no extra data charges outside of the US), and texting is free
It's difficult to get SIMs that work in local places around the world that do everything you need to do and cost much less than that. Plus the ones you buy locally have different numbers.
Eventually I switched this around, I put my US carrier in my SIM slot, and I use eSIM on the phone to get decent digital plans "in market". Some are digital via apps, some are QR codes from shops or kiosks.
eSIM seems to have better or at least competitive pricing for the last 4 years or so.
// Note I'm generally using a lot of data, so cost matters. The only thing I've found much cheaper is to get a local carrier who also offers free unlimited WiFi from local APs. Anywhere this works, that naturally beats any cell-only plan. You usually won't find this except by searching local language sites or going into local carrier stores and asking.
So much about support and independence.
I assume that’s an autocorrect? I like it.
Another thing that I just remembered is that my ISP only allowed me 10 activations on the e-sim before having to buy a new one for 50 bucks.
My Pixel 2 supported WiFi Calling but my carrier didn't acknowledge it as "supported" and the carrier's servers refused to send it a settings file.
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.
You could still get everything working by manually configuring the phone, and carriers like GiffGaff had support articles explaining how, but it was a total pain in the arse and stuff would occasionally break in subtle ways.
Additionally the eSIM is separate physical chip within the phone attached to baseband radio. Once configured with a profile, the host OS has as much access as it does to a normal SIM, I.e. not much. The entire standard is kinda a hack, which basically boils down to “what if we embedded a normal SIM card chip in the phone, and let the phone flash a new carrier profile every now and then?”. Remember these SIMs are fully fledged computers, like their normal removable counterparts, that can ignore host OS commands, and issue instructions directly to the baseband processor without the host OS knowledge.
Then there’s the dozens of companies in the App Store like https://www.dentwireless.com/ who all provide eSIMs for international travel. I find it hard to believe they all have agreements with Apple, it normally costs far to much to deal with Apple for bottom dollar companies to make any money.
So would take all of those sources with a large pinch of salt. If Apples eSIMs we’re proprietary, I would expect to be easy to find articles discussing the fact, given they’ve been around for a few years now.
A physical SIM in contrast always works. I was already questioning whether I'd ever need to upgrade from the 12 Pro but this type of needless regression makes it an easy decision.
[ 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.
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).
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.
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.
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).
Plus, in reality who needs "lots of GBs" these days when travelling ? You need "enough" GBs to tide you over between WiFi hotspots which, let's face it, in 2021 are everywhere and free in many places (hotels, conference venues, offices, shopping centres, coffee shops etc.).
You cannot accuse me of being a shill because I named multiple eSIM providers (alongside an "etc." suffix at the end of the list) so you have no right whatsoever to accuse me of marketing for any specific eSIM provider.
(I do not work for an eSIM provider either).
So please stop your trolling.
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.
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.
Dual eSIM, however, are fairly new.
Airalo is legit, whether or not they're "serious" really doesn't matter.
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.
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.
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.
Which kind of highlighted that it was a dark-pattern that only served to trick customers.
Kind of reinforces the notion that we should be worried...
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).
I’m not sure why nextgrid is constructing this weird technological strawman.
With eSIM, not only are they in control of switching eSIMs between devices but it also gives them a clean slate to introduce the aforementioned network-level restriction under excuses such as security (though again since they're in control of switching eSIMs they can just block it there or be annoying in other ways - some carriers already charge for reissuing eSIMs despite it being a completely automated process).
Even worse, in many real cases. Let me give you an example, happened to me this October:
I get a new phone. I browse my carrier's website to find out how to transfer the eSim to the new one, but find nothing. I call them, they tell me it's impossible. I ask them to double check because this doesn't seem realistic - after one day of internal checks, they contact me saying they found a way! I just have to request to be migrated back to a physical SIM (costing me 15 EUR and 1 week of waiting), and when it will arrive I'll be able to migrate it to an eSIM again!
Isn't technology amazing?
This was in Germany, the operator is Congstar, an MVNO using Deutsche Telekom's network.
Utter nonsense. There's no technical requirement to get a new QR code, this is up to the carrier.
Why are there so many people spreading straight up lies in this thread?
When I wanted to move to a new phone, I simply deleted the data profile from my old phone and scanned the QR code on the new one, as the provider suggested. It just worked.
Some commenters here are correctly saying that the carrier could technically prevent physical SIMs from being moved between phones by restricting which IMEIs are connecting to the network, but that's not usually done and there's an established convention that SIM cards can be moved around. eSIM gives them a blank slate to start over and break that convention without much backlash.
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.
Fraudulent SIM swaps are attacking a different layer of the system, they are social-engineering underpaid idiots to associate a new SIM with a given account & number.
You could in theory social-engineer a bank to reissue someone's payment card and somehow intercept it in the post or steal it from their mailbox. That doesn't mean chip & PIN is insecure.
I was a phone store monkey in the UK a few years back and a dedicated attacker can absolutely bypass this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29714400
I can only assume it's not more common because other scams are more profitable and/or not enough targets (banks, etc) use SMS 2FA as their only method of authentication so a SIM swap wouldn't give you much.
The way forward is to get rid of the SIM and access those carrier networks through credentials, ideally I would love to see it as a cryptographic receipt that you get from your payment provider and pass it to the the carrier as a proof of right for account and usage of their networks.
SMS-based 2FA is not exploited by breaking any cryptography or exploiting some software vulnerability. It's by "asking nicely" the carrier's customer support idiots to associate a new SIM to the target account & number.
Replacing the SIM with username/password wouldn't do anything - instead of the attackers having to associate a new physical SIM they'll just associate a new set of credentials.
Anyway, it's not only social engineering but even if it was it simply means that it's useless for security.
Just yesterday, a friend of mine got a fringe hacking incident or a bug. We are not still sure if it was hack but somehow the SIM card in her phone identified as another number from another carrier. Who knows what happened, her SIM wasn't swapped it simply think that it's another number as she found out when started receiving notifications about her new number. Maybe it was Apple's bug or something but who cares, the physical SIM did not change anything.
They did - see EMV payment cards for example.
> it simply means that it's useless for security.
It's not - SIMs close one attack vector where credentials can't be stolen by malware/bruteforced. Current SIM-swap attacks don't scale well; imagine how worse the problem would be if any Android malware could silently take over your number even after you've wiped the device clean.
The solution is to close the social-engineering attack vector by making carriers liable for any losses, not to remove a different layer of security because it's currently being bypassed by a different flaw.
> Who knows what happened
I doubt it was nefarious, I'll place my bets on misconfiguration somewhere. The telephone network is a massive mess and it could very well be that some carrier/equipment in the path rewrote the caller ID as something else.
To drive the point home - this is a SIM card: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/55/Thuraya_... (although you can remove the mini-sim in this revision, originally they were exactly like modern EMV cards).
Again, if you're skeptical of the government itself and allowing them to tap your communication lines, then I understand your hesitation here (although 2FA won't protect you against warrants), but outside of that it's actually simple incompetence of the carriers - SIM swap fraud attacks are common in North America but surprisingly fewer outside despite having the exact porting capabilities, probably because there's a waiting period (usually 48 hours) enforced where the current holder of the SIM card gets warnings about the impeding deactivation in other countries. Annoying if you lost your SIM card, sure, but is much better than having an unauthorised person getting a shiny new SIM card without warning.
Not sure what's going on in other countries, but back when I was a phone store monkey in the UK this was not the case. A SIM swap could be done immediately and the previous SIM doesn't get any notification. If I remember right we needed to check ID, but we had no way nor proper training to tell a potential fake ID, nor what counts as an acceptable ID (the UK doesn't have mandatory ID cards, so a lot of people don't have ID) - I would defer to my manager in this case but I'm pretty sure the whole process was really at their discretion and whether the whole thing "feels" legit. Making it look like we'd get a sale is an easy way to sway the odds in your favour (we'd need to access the account anyway to make the sale, so you can play along and buy a new plan, and once we pulled up the account you can mention "oh BTW I need a new SIM" and we would oblige).
Fun fact: to access someone's account in-store we had to either text them a code and enter it in the web UI (good!) or provide knowledge-based answers such as amount of last bill, some digits of the ID/driver's license number or a security question answer. There was bruteforce protection, but here's the fun part - it was presumably implemented on the frontend only because you could reload the page on the last attempt and reset the counter of attempts! There were no consequences that I know of (neither from the company nor a notification/follow-up with the customer) to locking out an account either.
At least part of the system was Java-based (it blew up occasionally displaying a full stack trace full of PII) and was available over the Internet (there was a site-to-site VPN for the store, but the URL nevertheless loaded on a standard internet connection when I tried it probably due to misconfiguration, so it's very likely all of that was exposed during the Apache Struts or Log4J vulnerabilities).
I think the reason SIM Swap fraud isn't as common in the UK is either because getting the money out is more difficult or because other scams (authorized push payment fraud, scammers pretending to be tech support or tax authorities, etc) are just more profitable.
Back when I had to use AllScripts EHR software, if I messed up my password three times, I'd just restart the client application. Bam, three more attempts, no need to wait ten minutes.
(I don't know if this is still the case, but I sure hope it's not.)
Sure are a lot of rugged individuals who can do it all (they claim) yet seem to not notice they hardly accomplish any more than anyone else without the help.
I’m skeptical of other humans period. You’re regurgitating the most reinforced rhetoric in your experience. You’re decoupled from the actual work implementing solutions to these problems, and the ease at which theft and fraud occur without technology.
There’s no such thing as a 100% secure system. Physics doesn’t allow it. Accept it. Lean into your biology to self soothe.
I may mistrust the government but like everything else it’s just people, not a black box.
Come on internet geniuses; open source and hardware are right there for you to make this happen. Get funding. Prove you can do better. Show you’re more than syntactic and semantic drivel.
The collective of people making your phone work are incompetent, says the person whose probably never tried. What a joke.
By the way, CDR processing (aka parsing CSV files and figuring out how much to charge - rocket science I know) is also routinely outsourced to the lowest bidders with no doubt terrible security practices: https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/5g-elephant-in-the-room/
Why not? This is a useful behavior that is currently emulated by forwarding calls to laptops and tablets with the same account when the devices are on the same Wi-Fi. You could get rid of the Wi-Fi requirement if those devices all simply had an eSIM with the same number.
Phones & SIMs don't even know nor care about their own number. The SIM has a field for that but in fact it's often left empty (iOS devices discover their own number by texting a known Apple number and getting the response via the Internet, they'll then populate this field out of courtesy but it's not necessary for functionality).
When a call comes in, the carrier decides which SIM it should be routed to. When a SIM makes an outbound call, the carrier decides which number to set as caller ID.
The functionality you speak of has nothing to do with SIM vs eSIM, it's about carriers having to actually innovate and do some engineering. Their current oligopoly means there's no commercial pressure for them to do so, and there's no reason why they would suddenly do this with the switch to eSIMs.
TIL! Is that why in some countries and some SIM cards my iPhone can automatically report its own phone number (when I look at my own profile under 'Contacts') and in some countries it doesn't do that?
Carriers who assign numbers to SIMs in advance could set that field directly. Others, either because they don't assign a number at the time of the SIM manufacture/personalization or just because they can't be bothered as it's not functionally necessary will leave it blank - in that case from my experience iPhones will populate the field with the number they get back from the iMessage & FaceTime provisioning step but again that's not actually necessary for functionality. The field is also user-editable in Settings -> Phone if you wish.
Your SIM provider certainly can issue a duplicate. Also, SIMs can be spoofed.
The sim is nothing more than an auth token which can easily be duplicated.
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:
In Canada, Bell had their "Home Hub 3000" and plenty of folks took out the optic and put it in their own hardware; this possibility was 'discontinued' with the Home Hub 4000, which no longer has a removable optic. There is nothing inherent on the ONT that limits connectivity except the arbitrary telco design choices.
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.
You have missed the point. OP is talking about how ridiculous having a physical bit of plastic to log in to the cell towers is. The physical sim provides next to no value.
And it comes at a heavy cost in space inside the phone as well as annoyance waiting for a new sim to ship in the mail. While esim providers email you a QR code and you are good to go immediately.
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.
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.
Discloser: I sell eSIMs.
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 can store more than one eSIM in your iPhone, but you can use only one at a time. To switch eSIMs, tap Settings, tap either Cellular or Mobile Data, and then tap the plan you want to use. Then tap Turn On This Line." [1]
On the iPhone 13, you can actually use two esims at the same time.
"You don't do it so often" is not an argument for eSims
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.
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.
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).
This could even generate a new relay e-mail for them in the same process so that a single QR code gives them the name and both a unique-to-them phone number and e-mail address to contact you, and adds it to their contacts automatically.
Sharing of contact details could be done by a side-channel:
1) Someone I already know and trust asks to share my contact details to a third party.
2) I get a prompt on my device asking to confirm I want to connect with this new person.
3) A diffie/hellman exchange sets up a secure channel between myself and this new third party.
4) We both confirm we want to add each other.
5) A unique e-mail address and phone number is generated on each device and sent across the channel to the other party.
6) Both parties have now established a new contact for the other party with contact details completely unique to them.
This would entirely resolve a whole class of issues around data protection/harassment/privacy.
If anyone at any time wishes to rescind contact permission they can just burn that contact link. Sure, you could be contacted via someone else that also knows both of you but there's a massive disincentive to pass along your details without your consent - you'll know who passed along your details because they'll be the same unique details you issued to someone else, and you can freely burn their contact link too.
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.
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.
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.
(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.
[1]: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/r...
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.
The long term SIM cards (Virgin UAE, Three HK, Lifecell Ukraine) with phone numbers I can easily transfer by going on the carrier apps or websites.
But we’re rapidly headed towards a data-only world where the SIMs are essentially disposable, there’s nothing you’d care about transferring except perhaps some prepaid data you have left.
- 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?
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.
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 integration in the device doesn't really mean the device manufacturer has more control on the sim, far from it. The integration is limited to the interface needed to download/enable/disable profiles, what's referred to as an LPA (local profile assistant). Still OP is misinterpreting that this somehow gives the ability to device manufacturer, which are not network providers, to somehow be able to now step into the telco space. The reality is far from it and Apple cannot provide such service. What they do on the field though, is market devices are easier to use and follow up with mobile operators so that the integration is seamless.
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.
USB-PD then makes power negotiation a protocol rather than a dance of resistors, forces the device to have a dedicated charging circuit (regulate current), and allows for a device to say "please send less power now" or shut off charging if it overheats.
Manufacturers change the ports and occasionally you have a Nintendo that wants to reuse a port with their own mini-spec, but most of the blame lies with those outright malicious chargers.
https://9to5google.com/2021/11/29/pixel-6-reject-charging-ca...
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
Just more reasons to avoid smartphones.
It was my first time traveling internationally that I felt like it was a great solution.
Example: I have a SIM from Free (French carrier) that gives me 150GB data in France and 25GB of roaming data throughout the EU and a few other countries for €20/month. It would cost more than double that to match the allotment with the travel carriers you find on e.g. Airalo.
I think the problem is less eSim vs Sim, and more market forces. I think the hope would be that if eSims are the only option for iPhones, it'll force more and more carriers to support eSim.
For example, I went to Sweden for a month, and in those days calling in the EU wasn't a thing. I bought a Swedish SIM for if I'd meet people there (and I did). 10 years later, I traveled in Thailand for a month and I wanted internet. I bought a Thai SIM got internet for like, 10 euro's? And that was that. The fact that Apple disallows me this freedom means I will have to switch once the Covid issues start to become less of a thing.
Just looking at Thailand, I see many prepaid esim providers: https://esimdb.com/thailand
Also (I don't know anything about Thailand, just just some quick searching), it seems at least the largest provider in Thailand has essentially the same service: https://www.ais.th/esim/en/ where you can buy the eSim either online or in a shop.
It's still possible to access the network pesudo-anonomously with a physical sim, I can only assume a "selfie to activate eSim" is going to happen sooner rather than later.
In Germany you are already required to ID yourself for normal SIMs.
My father had to download a provider app to access a video call where he had to show his ID.
We need to stop assuming humans can connect to an endpoint over a network 24/7 365. There are times when you may not be able to, for all sorts of reasons, make a HTTP request at a given moment.
Networks fall over, riots happen, dictators just shut it off. Dangerous precedent to set.
But even if you don't have a connection now and try to provision it, I'd assume the phone would just cache the SM-DP code for later provisioning in the background when a connection is available.
Privacy-wise, there is no difference. It gives the carriers more opportunities to be assholes and justify some new hostile requirements due to the switch to eSIM, but once an eSIM is provisioned it behaves just like a physical SIM.
That's bollocks. An eSIM module is exactly the same chip as in a normal SIM card - right down to the electric specifications and communication protocols, so you can hook up a provisioned eSIM module to a phone or a SIM card to a device using an eSIM chip and it will Just Work (tm).
The only difference is that the eSIM module is allowing the baseband chip to flash a new set of cryptographic keys, a process that will (usually) require the cooperation of the main SoC to get and transmit said keys.
The only scenarios where an attacker could reprogram your SIM remotely is either a malicious actor in the provider network (at which point there is the question why an attacker would want to reprogram your SIM at that point, given all they can do is give your SIM card access keys to another network) or a malicious actor with an IMSI catcher.
In both scenarios the attacker would require an exploit in your specific baseband and the correct cryptographic keys (or yet another exploit) for the eSIM to accept the new profile... and at the degree of knowledge, hardware and the actual exploits required to get to the point a successful attack requires, your attacker will be a government or an NSO-scale enterprise. And seriously, at that point you already have lost anyway because they have exploits for the OS you're running on whatever device you use, they don't need to deal with taking over your SIM card.
Carrier incompetence will exist regardless of if the SIM is physical or virtual.
No, they can't - there is (at least for modern SIM cards and eSIM modules, see [1]) no way short of decapping the chip to extract the secret keys once they are on the chip, and even de-capping is something that the chip industry has gotten pretty good on defending against.
An attacker would have to request a new eSIM profile (aka, new keys) from your provider to hijack your number, which is an entirely different threat model.
[1]: https://www.kaspersky.com/blog/sim-card-history-clone-wars/1...
I’m not talking about getting the number from the phone, but directly from the operator.
A lot of phones already support eSIM. Apple will claim they invented it and some will copy the no Sim slot but there are still carriers that don't support eSIM so I don't see this taking off like removing the headphone jack.
I'm wondering if they keep an eSIM-only model as having two eSIMs.
The dual sim implementation is very weird, like its clear they only imagine that someone is popping in a different SIM for travel, as opposed to just having two numbers they use all the time like I do. Even most of the support is catered to travellers with a temporary second physical sim.
The OS implementation is odd, but has gotten better. Only FaceTime can't differentiate.
But I really wish Apple would do more contact management, even with permissions. Should be a way to silo certain contacts. Not every app I share contacts with should know every contact.
I looked it up now:
Two active plans with dual eSIM
Or
Two active plans with a physical SIM and an eSIM
Weird that it cant just do 3 active plans
Is it a radio limitation?
If this happens though, all carriers will be forced their hand. Sometimes it's the only chance
Meaning that swapping between phones now requires calling, possibly expensive, support lines and you better hope your phone issue didn't happen during holidays. And that you have a working backup phone. And you're not in a foreign country trying to put your SIM back.
It's a massive regression of convenience against simply swapping a small chip.
Yeah it's beginning to sound like replacing wired headphones with BT ones
if you are mocking the notion that it was courage to get rid of the headphone. Then you are correct But then again I got a phone with headphone jack but still prefer Bluetooth. Especially now when wearing masks,... no cables that get in the way of.taking off and putting on a mask.
It's not just wireless audio. The same happened with the Ethernet: while most people use WiFi, Ethernet (especially Gigabit and faster) also has its advantages. Removing an Ethernet port is not an improvement: it is a statement.
A USB port is also not that thick yet it has been dropped on many recent laptops, although a Thinkpad X1 Carbon shows it is possible to have USB, HDMI etc on a 2lb / 1kg machine.
Lenovo also sells the T480s, those are not substantially thicker (1.6 cm high) and beefier and come with a built-in ethernet (!) port.
Old: https://support.apple.com/library/APPLE/APPLECARE_ALLGEOS/SP...
New: https://awsimages.detik.net.id/community/media/visual/2021/1...
As per telecom regulation, you cannot get a new eSIM online. The only way is visiting telecom service center in person, verify your ID, pay the fee (about 10 USD), finally got a printed eSIM QR code.
It implies you must pay $10 when you switch to a new phone every time. worse than Physical SIM card.
In every case you still need to wait for the qr-code to be posted at your mailbox (even if you can sign the contract online).
You're looking for a solution created for a problem that doesn't need to exist.
Of course they do, eSIMs allow companies like airalo to exist. Surely Apple moving fully to eSIMs will bring even more competition to this space.
Currently I carry on my trips a spare phone that I can use to transfer my SIM card to and keep being able to receive various SMS messages needed for me to function at all.
So what do I do after the change?
Apple keeps making it very difficult for me to want to keep purchasing their products.
Smartphones are personal devices, and without SIM cards a network connection can be tied to the person using it. This is a fundamental change and we should think hard if we want that to happen.
FBI does it all the time. They send in an IP, then we track the MAC to the device. Seen a few arrested based on this.
If you want to keep the same phone number, the only way is to buy another eSIM for the new phone, and then use the PUK to transfer the old number to it.
My fear isn't actually Apple, it's the loss of Apple. I've watched as they've lost just about every last noble aspect that inspired me growing up. Somehow they went from an art and education platform to just another corporate behemoth. I find myself questioning more and more whether they are even innovating anymore, or if they're just using their dominant position to vacuum up all of the capital. Same with all of the other tech companies.
I guess what I'm saying is that I feel that Apple is already gone whenever I read that they're even considering things like this. If they do it, then I would feel a tremendous sense of shame as an engineer if I worked at Apple. That's really what it comes down to. Can we continue to silently endorse abusive behaviors by working for these companies, or is it time to withdraw our support and form new companies that do actual research and innovate again?
Big can of worms there, but, I find myself considering the idea more and more in these times.
I think it might have something to do with selling a product that customers prefer over the alternatives.
Stop buying iPhones, start de-registering devices and selling them on the second hand market. Use a flip phone or an android privacy ROM.
Surely, Apple selling lots of phones has nothing to do with people buying a product that appeals to them, and only to do their evil lobbying and manipulation.
Too bad this evil company Apple has replaced the Apple of your youth, that was cool, and not a for-profit company.
Homie, they’re removing the SIM card because they have the data no one uses it. You’re reaching into IDK-WHAT just to put words on the page. It’ll be OKAY.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decommodification
Vendor lock-in gradually erodes our freedom. I want to be able to use my own flash storage for expansion, I want to be able to replace my own battery without tools, I want a headphone jack. Times countless other questionable design decisions across their product lines, and those of companies which copied them, that make me sad for what could have been.
It would certainly be against the industry as a whole!
I assume they want to go "portless", which means they will have to wait for Full e-SIM support first? ( They could well be a wrong assumption )
Should? Maybe not. One goal of removing SIM and headphone jack is to reduce opportunities for water intrusion.
Fewer seals, fewer seal failures. (Salt water can be fun on the metal contacts, too.) I expect Apple to go induction-only charging at some point, for similar reasons.
Waterproofing is possible right now and works for almost all normal use cases. No need to remove features.
What Apple is doing is definitely not for waterproofing.
I don't know why you believe.
Do whatever makes you happy, but a lot of this seems like yelling at clouds to me.
Is this just part of the roll out, and it will be available in time, do eSims require a Monthly plan?
I literally cannot buy a phone without a SIM card slot because I can’t use it basically anywhere I visit.
In one of my pubescent year, the same incident happened again; But this time, threw it to the ground and glass screen protector ate all the damage except the home button. Remember cutting my finger pressing it.
The final one is back in 2018. Threw my phone and it ended up breaking the wall instead.
Just in case that future phone will be connected to a headset or IOT devices, it makes sense to give less priority to GSM functionality.
Simple physical interfaces are far superior.
And this is the first time I've heard of it. (and in with https://xkcd.com/1053/ before someone else does)
There are a ton of websites where you can immediately get esims for almost every country, why bother with physical sims?
I’ve probably used their sims in 30+ countries at this point, they’re even available in more exotic places like St Barthelemy or Moldova.
They'd love smart everything, it's the predators that are the problem.
Smart TV is an appliance with software applied on top. No one wants all that smartness interactivity. You are fundamentally still just viewing content on it. But those smart features often did nothing "smart" other than complicated the hell out of the process.
> iPhone 13 models already support multiple eSIM profiles, allowing users to subscribe to several cellular plans digitally and switch between them, […]
Did you know your simcard contains Java Runtime Environment?
I wonder if any environment uses log4j? (jk I hope. The JavaCard spec is fairly limited so maybe it's accidentally safe :D )
I used to have my main number as an eSim, and then inserted a travel SIM. Had to convert my eSim back to a real SIM card. Luckily it has dual SIM.
I hated having to call the provider when I was with Sprint and Verizon Wireless in the US, when I wanted to change the phone I was using. And that was mostly free and they had 24-hour hotlines. If you have to pay and can only call during business hours, it is a huge regression.
You buy a new phone, say you have an android and buy an iphone or reverse... you can easily move the sim card as you want. I'm not even sure how you would do that with eSIM.
https://support.apple.com/guide/security/apple-pay-component...
So are you going to venture that Tim Cook is using an iPhone built for the American or Chinese market?
I’d imagine it’s the opposite. Presumably the company pays for their roaming charges so swapping SIMs is a foreign concept for them.
Then they came for the memory card slots, but I did not speak out, for I streamed all my media.
Then they came for the headphone jacks, and I did not speak out, for I did not play games on my phone.
Then they came for the SIM cards, and there was no one left to speak out.