AT&T Locks Apple SIM on Activation | Hacker News Reader

AT&T Locks Apple SIM on Activation

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108 pointscalvin_c54 comments

Doesn't this completely negate the point of "Apple SIM?" I thought the whole purpose was to allow people to switch carriers simply and quickly.

They even sold it as something which would allow you to switch into different inexpensive plans as and when you needed it. That was their damn sales pitch.

If you need to buy tons of $5 SIMs, and walk around with them to switch, then the entire thing has absolutely no benefit and you should just get a result SIM which might be free anyway.

I imagine this was just too hard of a sell to AT&T. As long as you never try out an AT&T plan it still works as advertised, but that's a huge downside if it takes away one of the largest carriers supported as a real option.

There are two points to this SIM, and dedicating it to a carrier only negates one.

This SIM still removes the requirement to either purchase a carrier specific SIM before first using the device, or have Apple stock devices with the various manufacturer's SIMs preinstalled. Making a customer poke their new device with a paperclip and load a SIM is not very Applelike.

It specifically makes it easier on apple, I never had any delusion that this was for the benefit of customers.

It would negate a few weeks ago. Now that all the 'Ballsy Apple shafting the carriers' articles are already published, that point is moot.

Apple has a long roadmap to turn the carriers into dumb pipes. The original iPad deal was the first step. This is the second. Just because ATT locks the sim today doesn't mean Apple hasn't negotiated an end date to that. Just because Verizon has their own SKU today doesn't mean Apple won't slowly put the screws to them to bring them on board a universal model.

After 7 years in the telecommunications industry with the nations second largest telco, I can say for certain that they are dumb, and so are their pipes.

Telcos CEOs and big shareholders are extremely arrogant, but not dumb. IMHO in the US, the balance of power between telcos and phone manufacturers is still in favour of the telcos. To have any chance Apple will have to bring back most of their foreign profits (and that will cost a ton of taxes) and ally with other vendors (Google, Samsung, etc.). So not likely at all.

Or will Apple, Google, etc form a US (or non-US?) company that's invested in by their foreign, profit-booking subsidiaries thus negating the tax situation?

It's hilarious that you could "launder" profits this way.

The balance of power between the telcos and most "phone manufacturers" is in favor of the telcos but for Apple and the telcos it's decidedly in Apple's favor which is why they are now all on board with no exception I'm aware of to Apple's basic demands on branding, logos and crapware.

I would argue the senior staff may not be dumb, but much of their staff is another story. For example, I was working closely with Verizon staff while they were petitioning the FTC to allow them to raise 411 rates. Their argument for the required rate increase was that they were loosing customers to things like google 411 search, so they need to raise rates to keep their service profitable.

How's that for logic? "Hmm, we now have competition for our product that is better and cheaper, oh well we better just raise our rates." Meanwhile they were very slow to make improvements to their product as a means of countering competition.

The logic is that they have already lost the knowledgeable, price sensitive customers. Raising the rates would allow them to extract more value from the rest, e.g. old people.

Do you have any sources for this "roadmap"? If anything this built-in Sim card seems like an idea that lessens the power of the consumer and goes in the opposite direction to weaken consumer choice/freedom.

There's no shortage of analysis explaining how being able to switch carriers with the press of a button would lead carriers to offer more competitive deals to consumers.

... or alternatively entrench the pricing power of the big carriers by freezing-out upstarts.

If you can only activate your SIM with A, B or C they can present a 'price war' face whilst monopolising the market.

Why would A undercut B by anything more than pennies in such a captive market?

We see this in the UK with the Big Three ISPs offering increasingly silly incentives like supermarket shopping vouchers to poach customers from one another, but not actually growing their shared subscriber base or offering better products.

But you can still take out that SIM and put in one you got from your provider (or bought as a prepaid card in one of a zillion of places), can you?

If not, how does Apple plan to sell these phones in Europe?

I knew the USA was bad in this respect years ago, but from this thread, I get the impression that the USA _still_ lives in the middle ages, as far as mobile phone subscriptions go.

It only supports certain carriers and now we learn that carriers can lock it upon activation. I'd rather there be a small independant card that can easily be hot swapped to allow access to different carriers. Oh wait

As true as that may be, it's not exactly a "source" for your previous claim.

I'm not claiming a source, I'm pointing out the obvious implications of their actions in the space. The original ipad data plan isn't something AT&T thought up, it's something Steve forced on them and it's still the closest thing we have to dumb pipes. IMessage was another end run around carrier cash cows. Multi-SIM is another step. And when this choice Sim goes global that will be another bullshit carrier ripoff we can wave goodbye to.

One note - the Apple SIM is free, according to Apple:

> An Apple customer service representative told Ars that Apple SIMs are available for free at Apple retail stores.

http://arstechnica.com/apple/2014/10/att-locks-multi-carrier...

Yeah... I think I'll stick to unlocked phones and swap out regular, 3GPP-mandated standard SIM cards. I'll know exactly what I get, which isn't regulated by some shady operator+manufacturer deals.

"dedicates the Apple SIM", what a way to avoid writing "locks".

Lock would be confusing because consumers associate that with being carrier locked. It is still an unlocked device, and the word choice helps make that clear.

... but you can buy a new SIM to switch carriers if you need to:

> If your Apple SIM becomes dedicated to a specific network and you want to choose from other carrier programs, you can purchase a new Apple SIM from an Apple Retail store.

Better than having to buy a new iPad.

iPads from the Apple Store are never carrier locked.

Yes. This just highlights the fact that you NEVER, ever want to buy an iOS device from a carrier's store. Always buy directly from Apple. Not just because of this SIM lock issue, but also because Apple's return policy and the way they handle problems very early in the life of a device is very different if you bought it somewhere else versus having bought it from Apple directly.

Wait, so explain it to me. When I bought my last iPad, I could have sworn I had to choose an AT&T model or a Verizon model. Or is this a new feature on the iPad Air 2?

EDIT: From the link:

> right from your iPad Air 2 or iPad mini 3

So this is new for iPad Air 2 then it appears.

Right. Older cellular iPads supported either GSM or CDMA, so you had to choose at purchase in the US whether it was for AT&T (GSM) or Verizon (CDMA). Newer cellular iPads include both GSM and CDMA.

The best part about this: iPad boxes never said which carrier it was locked to. You had to look it up via serial number. Non-Apple sales people didn't seem to understand this and happily sold me an AT&T iPad when I asked for a Verizon iPad.

They actually do, at least for the past couple of years. My past two iPad purchases have been clearly marked "AT&T" right on the label.

Yep, same here. I have a first gen iPad, a first gen retina display iPad, and a couple of iPad Air now and only the first gen didn't have the carrier on the box, but that's because the first gen was ATT only.

I bought my mom a Verizon iPad a couple of years ago. Unfortunately I was actually sold an AT&T iPad. There was no indication either way on the box.

> the way they handle problems very early in the life of a device is very different if you bought it somewhere else versus having bought it from Apple directly

My recent experience directly contradicts that. I bought my daughter an iPhone 6 from Verizon (because of the $200 trade in offer). My daughter's screen cracked within a month. The Apple store gave her a new phone, no charge. Couldn't have been easier. The only thing the store needed to do was to remove the SIM from her old phone and pop it into her new one.

But I agree with your general assertion. Absent a strong financial incentive (in this case a much better trade in value) or other extenuating circumstance, I would always buy directly from Apple.

Edit: just wanted to add, I think that Apple is "being good" in this, the very early phase of iPhone 6. My daughter claims she didn't drop her phone (ha ha) and the crack was very similar to pictures I've seen of "bendgate" where the break occured near the weak points of the phone. So Apple doesn't want more negative publicity about this. If it were six months from now, Apple might be much less accommodating.

Seemed to me like the benefit of these SIM cards was that would could change providers at will without hunting down a new SIM. But it seems like you can only choose once.

US carriers are so silly. People can easily use unlocked phones in Europe and - this might shock them - the sky hasn't fallen! The usual duopolies are still the same duopolies as they were a decade ago.

You're buying a phone - you should be a allowed to put a different SIM in it and "cheat" on your network. It's not like you won't be paying them if you're in the contract anyway. If the contract ends - then you're free to leave them anyway. So why are they making such a big deal about SIM-locking?

> the sky hasn't fallen! The usual duopolies are still the same duopolies as they were a decade ago

Prices have definitely dropped though. Mobile telephony in Europe is usually cheaper than in the US.

Except when you leave your home country.

Americans are not against this. The phone companies who hold oligopolies are against this.

You can put a different SIM in it. The device (in this case the iPad) itself isn't locked to a carrier. The Apple SIM was only an additional convenience in that you didn't even have to put in a new SIM in it (i.e. the same SIM could be used on multiple carriers) to change carriers.

However, that's currently effectively limited to 3 carriers now (2 US and 1 UK) with AT&T effectively making it non - reprogrammable SIM if activated on AT&T).

> US carriers are so silly. People can easily use unlocked phones in Europe and - this might shock them - the sky hasn't fallen!

People in Europe are paying $20/month for plans that are better than what americans are paying $70/month. It is not the US carriers that are silly. It is the US customers.

While there are certainly user benefits (like easier switching between providers) that's not the primary point of the Apple SIM.

Think about SKUs and inventory.

On launch day this month, Apple had 2 phones, with 3 different storage sizes, available in 3 different colors. Apple SIM is about not have to have another multiple on top of all those combination about which network the phone works on (AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, etc).

Apple SIM lets them go from 42+ SKUS, to 12.

User choice is nice and Apple certainly cares about the user experience. But Tim Cook made his bones at Apple as master of supply and distribution chains. Apple SIM helps them, even if the carriers all balk on allowing users to switch providers via software.

I'm not sure I follow. Can they not have 12 SKUs and then allow people to put "normal" SIMs in them?

You're allowed to put a normal SIM in them. But in the name of user experience, you shouldn't be required to fiddle with little pieces of plastic to get online.

Why is it so hard for Americans to learn what a SIM card is? "The SIM card is your phone number". My 85 year aunt knows what one is and how to swap it out. Why do they have to be preinstalled? So Apple can shave a mm off the thickness of the device?

Maybe because most people here never ever change their SIM card. You buy a phone and you're basically locked into your carrier until your contract expires, then you buy a new phone because it's the only way to justify the ridiculous monthly fees. If you venture overseas you often just put up with the stupid-high rates your carrier will charge you because it's too much of a pain or too complicated to call your carrier and get your phone unlocked.

I don't think saving mm's off the thickness is a factor at all because the SIM is still replaceable. I think Apple thought it was a better user experience to be able to choose their carrier this way. And of course now they don't have to stock iPads with carrier-specific SIMs.

Yes, they could sell SIM-less iPads, but that would make for a poor buying experience, at least for us SIM-shy 'merkins.

The other problem have been the cdma carriers have been and still are the predominant cell carriers in the USA. That means most never used phones with sims until recently.

> "The SIM card is your phone number"

It used to be a useful statement, but the US (and many other countries) now have phone number portability, and other stuff. I've changed my SIM to _stay_ with the same number from a different carrier in the past, after porting.

Question: Why are they able to? Is the ability to lock some FCC regulation, or did Apple leave this ability in because AT&T demanded it?

Why we as American consumers continue to tolerate behavior like this out of our carriers is beyond me...

what's the cost of a new apple SIM?

$5. Not much but not insignificant. I'd rather AT&T just not lock it.

Edit: I thought I had read $5, but now I can't find that source, so who knows.

Another commenter in this thread is also saying $5. So it appears your memory is serving you :) ... unless of course you read it from this thread, ha

According to Ars Technica, it's free:

> An Apple customer service representative told Ars that Apple SIMs are available for free at Apple retail stores.

http://arstechnica.com/apple/2014/10/att-locks-multi-carrier...

Why? Why does apple allow them to do this?

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