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My experience with eSIM has so far been quite negative. I’ve upgraded phone twice since being forced to use one by my carrier and it’s been a pain both times. The initial setup of scanning a QR code was nice, why is every subsequent SIM change a 10 step dance in an app (or worse a support call) rather than one phone showing the QR and the other scanning it? Once this phone needs updating, I’ll be swapping carrier to…
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I'll post an example for the parent just in case they are honestly confused about use cases. Here is one that happened to me. I had an eSIM on my iPhone. My iPhone broke (screen became somewhat unusable, and the phone was stuck in a restarting loop). It was an older model phone so I checked the repair cost and thought I'd rather buy a new one. Bought a new phone. Now, to transfer my eSIM from the old phone to the new…
“I’m across an ocean from any of my network’s stores and need to activate a different phone on my regular network and number right now, on the side of the road, without WiFi or a computer or a different, working phone already on my account” is to me the most obvious case where eSIM is weak. And having been in that situation before eSIMs, it was really easy - remove SIM, put in backup phone, use. Not so much now.
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If what you say is true, why would Apple ever force a switch to eSIM? I’m now less likely to buy a new iPhone because I don’t want to deal with this eSIM fiasco. It’s to their detriment. If their goal is to sell more phones, they would want to eliminate all friction to switch to a new phone. So what you are saying doesn’t add up.
Less space occupied, more battery, smaller phones. It wasn't the only reason, but was at least one of the stated reasons for the jack removal.
eSim is fine, SMS "authentication" is once again the f#?*ing problem. Its going to take congressional action before we can get rid of this menace. All we're doing is half-ass offloading credit and identity checks to cellphone carriers, which do this, and by having a cell phone, you've probably been through an identity and credit check.
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esim.me, 9esim and "sysmocom eUICC for eSIM" are eSIMs in the SIM card form factor that you can load the SIM profiles onto and use them in any device with a SIM card slot (and of course transfer between devices). In my opinion, that's the best of both worlds.
It's good, but they're expensive as fuck for what they are. The best option would be a software-only eSIM with full transfer support, IMO. But we don't have that, because GSMA says we can't have nice things.
Yep, I remember a time where you could extract the Ki and IMSI from legit SIMs and write that to a bog standard Goldwafer card (which were also used for cable TV hacking) including some SIM emulation software and thereby clone the SIM. That was like 30 years ago and the only thing that changed in SIMs since then is better encryption.
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Isn't that just semantics? It's tied to the same phone number, and I assume the generation of a new eSIM invalidates any old one (as happens with my carrier.) It's essentially backed up, even if it's just a (carrier, number) pair. If the Lyca account is trashed, the rest is just an implementation detail.
NO. IT IS NOT. If it is a backup, then you should be able to restore it verbatim without involving a middle man 3rd party
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I have used the AirAlo app to buy data-only eSIMs for so many international trips. It works well but I have only tried it on iPhones.
Did this yesterday on Android when arriving into Indonesia. While my wife waited in immigration, I used the Smart Gates. I downloaded an eSim via Airalo in just 90 seconds, providing me with enough data to send her a "good luck" message and let her know I'd see her at the hotel if she cleared immigration.
Wow.
If I can’t take my esim away from a phone and plug it to another one as easy as physical sim - there is zero point in having this bullshit. Just link my cell plan to IMEI or something.
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Note that if you just have a broken phone you don't need a new SIM, you just pop it out and pop it in the new phone. So 1min for a physical SIM vs 0-3 hours to create a new eSIM profile. I know which one will be faster. :)
Not only that... horror stories of eSIM transfers getting stuck and losing the phone number
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eSIM is also great for travel. There's a lot of competition on price and it's easy to check esimdb to find the cheapest carrier that meets your needs for a given trip. Download the eSIM in advance and you're good to go as soon as your plane lands
Unfortunately there's not much competition on providing low-latency data connections, so most travel esim providers don't advertise where their connections route through. It's not great when you're travelling and all your connections to local sites get routed through and geo-located to a different continent.