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Comment by hailwren | Hacker News Reader

But they’re also stuck with physical sims because of those same laws. I vastly prefer the esim in the US iphone to the tray.

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For those replying, I believe the parent was saying that EU phones are stuck with a physical SIM slot because of regulations. In the US, iPhones no longer have a SIM tray.

I understood it but I would definitely want at least one physical SIM on my phone. It has served me well many times (and not limited to remote areas) when my phone is unusable and I can use my SIM on another phone with the lock PIN.

I've had to contact the carrier to get a new phone approved for a SIM here in the states, so in my mind it is a bit of a wash there.

On the flip-side, T-Mobile has an app to add an eSIM to "test drive" their service on your phone for free, and I look forward to the day I can buy travel SIMs in advance on my couch at home.

That day was years ago. You’re looking for airalo or a few other apps that sell data esims you can activate from your couch.

Yes, people misread this to read “only physical sims”. The sim tray is useless in 2023 imo, but their phones are stuck w/ them because of laws that aren’t keeping up. We’ll see how well the regulators keep up w/ the next generations of tech.

Man, who cares. Doesn’t limit the number of esims you can have.

eSIM is available in France [1] on many brands and devices, including iPhones.

[1] https://assistance.orange.fr/objets-connectes/installer-et-u...

I've travelled across Europe with eSims bought from Mobimatter, and I've also bought local Vodaphone eSim in Italy and some other operator Montenegro. In fact, I'm writing this from a eSim in my iphone while I wait for Airbnb to resolve issues with check-in on Cyprus. What are you talking about?

oh, maybe you have both? US iphones don’t have sim trays. Euro iphones do.

Yes, and I can have two sims active at the same time. Physical and eSim or two eSims.

Yeah, we have two esims as well. More or less feature parity. No clue why anyone would want a sim card/tray in 2023. I’ve been working remote on 3 continents in the last year across the economic power spectrum and have never thought of using one.

I guess the personal Orange and corporate Polkomtel eSIMs I have in my iPhone are fake.

We have both esim and physical. Not only this, for people that want more privacy, some can buy physical sims without any documents at simple shops so that there is no risk for govt to track you

eSIMs are totally available here in Germany! Für example https://www.telekom.de/unterwegs/esim

I googled but I couldn't find anything about this. Source?

The Netherlands also checking in, I have used eSIM for years, across various providers.

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