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Apple said to be preparing for iPhones without SIM card slot in 2022

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Re: Apple said to be preparing for iPhones without SIM card slot in 2022

#61

Post by llampx »

Invictus0 wrote: post #54
hdjjhhvvhga wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I noticed this is a bone of contention among the HN community. It is clear why: both wired and wireless headphones have their advantages and inherent problems that had been discussed ad nauseam. In general, there is no problem as we are free people able to choose what we want and need. The problem appears when a company with a dominant position in the market declares one of these technologies dead and pushes their us…

The ethernet jack is too big, I wouldn't want a thicker laptop just for that. Just get the ethernet dongle if you need it.

I think this battle is long over and done with, but the Ethernet jack is not that big. A Thinkpad T470s/T480s has it and it is plenty thin. There are even some laptops with a collapsible RJ-45 port which allows it to be even thinner.

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.

Re: Apple said to be preparing for iPhones without SIM card slot in 2022

#62

Post by HPsquared »

izacus wrote: post #23
th3iedkid wrote: post #18

eSIMs are good but it doesn't eliminate the bureaucracy/paper work involved with acquiring an actual network connection, esp for those traveling across countries. Unless ofcourse you are willing to pay those listed roaming charges(some of which appear as hidden charges). Not sure what eSims or even Apple as a company can do about that?

Here in Switzerland eSIMs are actually massively worse - you can't swap them around on most operators without calling (!) their support line to manually release and regenerate the eSIM token. 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 forei…

A potential security weakness as well - they will need to make it more "easy" than it currently is to swap the eSIM between phones.

Re: Apple said to be preparing for iPhones without SIM card slot in 2022

#63

Post by lmilcin »

Fantastic. Now I will have no easy way to transfer my number from one phone to another.

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?

Re: Apple said to be preparing for iPhones without SIM card slot in 2022

#64

Post by llampx »

lifty wrote: post #3

Is there a good reason why mobile phones still have SIM cards, besides the historical reasons?

Progress for the sake of progress... SIM cards have plenty of advantages, all of which relate to control of your hardware. With a physical SIM card you retain control of the number and can swap it easily. As other comments have shown, with an eSIM, you rely on the provider to provision it for you.

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.

Re: Apple said to be preparing for iPhones without SIM card slot in 2022

#65

Post by boondaburrah »

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.

Re: Apple said to be preparing for iPhones without SIM card slot in 2022

#66

Post by jwr »

I am very worried about this.

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.

Re: Apple said to be preparing for iPhones without SIM card slot in 2022

#67

Post by iamricks »

boondaburrah wrote: post #65

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.

Maybe to avoid sim swapping? Although i am not sure if there would be an alternative attack.

Re: Apple said to be preparing for iPhones without SIM card slot in 2022

#68

Post by playpause »

pentae wrote: post #60
johnebgd wrote: post #4

Esim is a mature and excellent technology. This is overdue.

Not everywhere, as others in this thread have mentioned. As a frequent traveler I'll be probably holding onto the last physical sim iPhone for many years until everywhere I travel to has it all ironed out.

They’ll iron it out pretty quickly if iPhones can’t use their network.

Re: Apple said to be preparing for iPhones without SIM card slot in 2022

#70

Post by rk06 »

keraf wrote: post #57

Hopefully by removing the SIM tray, they have now enough space to put the headphone jack back. (bit of sarcasm but I really miss headphone jacks in mobile phones)

Too optimistic, Headphone jack takes so much space, that they can't put it on even ipad pro 12.9" /s
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