Apple Built A SIM Card That Lets You Switch Between AT&T, Sprint, And T-Mobile

Probably the most interesting thing from Apple today, in my opinion. The ability to buy short term plans from different providers effortlessly can turn my tablet into a much more versatile device, and increase competition and reduce long-term carrier lock-in.

It's pretty sweet and if it can set a standard for phones then we'll see carriers become true utilities between which customers can switch easily if they get poor service. In short, pretty awesome.

Today's carrier system kind of feels like this dinosaur, like a landline... archaic and unnecessary. With so many people travelling, changing places, changing technology etc, it makes a lot of sense to move from subscriptions to short-time payments, and eventually, pay-per second of use on the fly, directly, without an account or monthly statement, with a push payment instead of a pull payment. (digital currencies being a key element here). Anyway, getting a bit too off-topic here, but cool first move by Apple for sure!

that probably overrides/ignores the SIM card and use hardcoded GSM ids from the device. as if it has a sim slot plus 3 hardcoded sim, that you can select which one to use on software.

so i doubt you will be able to activate those hardcoded sims with any plan that easily. i doubt you will even be able to activate it without apple help.

but of course, im just guessing. have no idea if that is the case.

Why would they NOT talk about this today?

It baffles me.

So with this tech, how long until Apple starts offering MVNO services? And eventually completely destroys whatever profit margins the current operators have?