Swapping SIM cards used to be easy, and then came eSIM • Hacker News Board

Re: Swapping SIM cards used to be easy, and then came eSIM

#281

Post by yumraj » Tue, Dec 30, 2025, 11:13 PM UTC

EvanAnderson wrote: post #129

yumraj wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adapter causes unnecessary wear on the charging port. Recently had a phone go bad when the thunderbolt port stopped working due to the same port being used repeatedly for charging and for audio adapter. So when I updated the phone I grudgingly decided to get a BT earbud.

One of my iPhone SE's died an untimely death because of failure of the lightning port, so I'm strongly sympathetic. I also am a hardcore 3.5mm headphone user. Wireless headphones are garbage. I did get my mind changed on USB-C DACs by way of inductive charging. Using an USB-C DAC and still being able to inductively charge seems at least somewaht reasonable to me. On the newest round of phones for my wife and me I've…

Mine was also SE that went bad.

Need to dig deeper into inductive charging as it seems to heat the battery more especially if the phone is in a case. So yet another tradeoff to consider.

Good thing is that if the port goes bad it can still be charged.

Re: Swapping SIM cards used to be easy, and then came eSIM

#282

Post by andrewinardeer » Tue, Dec 30, 2025, 11:57 PM UTC

cromka wrote: post #264

okr wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, if its related to the original poster, then how do you know it is their first time in indonesia? :)) Most likely, :)), it is Bali, and for sure, you can leave wifey alone.

Fair enough. Still rather odd thing to write without at least acknowledgment of this being unusual — I guess this is what had people somewhat triggered, because they made it sound as if this was a natural thing to. But we digress.

To clarify, I went to the hotel, she got through (eventually) and went to a conference. I collected her luggage. We met back at the hotel later that evening.

Re: Swapping SIM cards used to be easy, and then came eSIM

#283

Post by spwa4 » Wed, Dec 31, 2025, 12:58 PM UTC

izacus wrote: post #85

spwa4 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The spec allows carriers to disallow removal of an eSIM, to allow for subsidized phone business models (in other words: this change was demanded by the carriers). So you should blame the carrier, not the manufacturer that simply implements the spec. It might be nice if manufacturers implement a HUUGE LOUD warning when enabling an eSIM that requires carrier authorization to remove though. Someone should put that in th…

Did "blaming the carrier" ever work for you when they were abusing you as a customer?

Yep. You know, before I hit buy.

Re: Swapping SIM cards used to be easy, and then came eSIM

#284

Post by ThePowerOfFuet » Wed, Dec 31, 2025, 2:34 PM UTC

hollow-moe wrote: post #268

ThePowerOfFuet wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

eSIM profiles are not backed up, as the key never leaves the Secure Element. What might be backed up is a token allowing the reissuance of a replacement eSIM by the carrier.

Can you prove it tho? Apple controls the whole hardware and software stack. They absolutely could store these keys in icloud backup.

Would be awfully obvious to have a subscriber to whom you issued an eSIM profile to an eUICC with the Removable flag set to False later accessing your network with a different IMEI...

Re: Swapping SIM cards used to be easy, and then came eSIM

#285

Post by nashashmi » Wed, Dec 31, 2025, 3:40 PM UTC

walidthedream wrote: post #32

I am quite annoyed by the people who don't see the issue with eSim because "they never had an issue" with it. It's like having one murder down your block and stating that you don't see the issue because nobody attempted to murder you so far. ESim are backed up as part of iCloud backups, had one dodgy carrier in Europe (Lyca) who never activated my eSim so I switched back to a new carrier but I had to get a transfer a…

> I switched back to a new carrier but I had to get a transfer authorization from Lyca.

I don't understand. I am able to travel and load multiple eSims on my phone. If you wanted to load a second esim, what prevented you? After loading one esim, you dump the other, or disable it. Do you mean in terms of transferring ph number?

Re: Swapping SIM cards used to be easy, and then came eSIM

#286

Post by nashashmi » Wed, Dec 31, 2025, 3:43 PM UTC

otterley wrote: post #234

raron wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The major advantage is now that the expensive and time-consuming part of provisioning a new mobile service (sending out a physical SIM card) I don't know, choosing service package, signing paperwork, identifying and other KYC stuff (tens of minutes) for me was always much more time-consuming than the few seconds of reading the barcode(?) from a new SIM card and giving it to the customer (or putting it into an autom…

> I can't see any advantage of eSIMs They are incredibly handy when you are traveling abroad, you don't speak the local language fluently, you want cheap data, you don't want to study 100 different prepaid plans from 10 different local primary and MVNO carriers to figure out the best offer, you don't want to wait for the shops to open because your flight landed late at night, and you don't want to scan your passport…

shoutout to airalo for the esim experience on travelling. A great marketplace. Great choices. I can book an esim from home country and activate the esim on arrival at the destination when over wifi.

Re: Swapping SIM cards used to be easy, and then came eSIM

#287

Post by aiisjustanif » Wed, Dec 31, 2025, 4:12 PM UTC

pxeboot wrote: post #78

walidthedream wrote: post #32

I am quite annoyed by the people who don't see the issue with eSim because "they never had an issue" with it. It's like having one murder down your block and stating that you don't see the issue because nobody attempted to murder you so far. ESim are backed up as part of iCloud backups, had one dodgy carrier in Europe (Lyca) who never activated my eSim so I switched back to a new carrier but I had to get a transfer a…

> ESim are backed up as part of iCloud backups You can’t actually backup an eSIM. If you could, they would be easy to clone. I know Apple uses that terminology, but that isn’t what is happening in the background. Same with transferring an eSIM. A new one is issued each time.

Many one-time eSIMs aren’t transferable, Nomad for example.

Re: Swapping SIM cards used to be easy, and then came eSIM

#288

Post by ekianjo » Thu, Jan 01, 2026, 8:25 AM UTC

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #183

ekianjo wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but the real response is "what's wrong with a usb-c to 3.5mm adapter" Easy. You can't charge and listen to your headphones at the same time.

I can. I use a MagSafe cord. It’s been on iPhones for five years

No everyone uses iPhones. Actually iPhone users are a minority.

Re: Swapping SIM cards used to be easy, and then came eSIM

#289

Post by mcv » Thu, Jan 01, 2026, 12:18 PM UTC

expedition32 wrote: post #171

walidthedream wrote: post #32

I am quite annoyed by the people who don't see the issue with eSim because "they never had an issue" with it. It's like having one murder down your block and stating that you don't see the issue because nobody attempted to murder you so far. ESim are backed up as part of iCloud backups, had one dodgy carrier in Europe (Lyca) who never activated my eSim so I switched back to a new carrier but I had to get a transfer a…

So don't do business with dodgy telcos and stick to the big ones? And as a bonus the established players even have their own stores in every mall!

Or just stick to regular sims. They're very reliable, esims are not.

I don't really see the case for eSims. In theory they could save a bit of time: activating immediately upon ordering your subscription online, instead of waiting days for delivery, but my new telco still sends you a plastic card with a QR code to scan before you can download it, completely nullifying that advantage. Besides, when you want to keep your number, you can rarely activate the new subscription anyway. On top of that, there's too much that can go wrong, and recovering from problems is harder than with a regular sim which just works.

Re: Swapping SIM cards used to be easy, and then came eSIM

#290

Post by bgbntty2 » Thu, Jan 01, 2026, 2:48 PM UTC

digitalPhonix wrote: post #93

kevincox wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a good point. That is what I meant by "and config" in my first sentence. IIUC if the keypair was a certificate with a few other fields foreign networks could give you some basic communication with your provider and decided if you should be allowed to use this network and if/how to tunnel you back to the home network. But the main point is that it should just be data that the user can port around to different d…

It’s not just config though (unless you consider logic to be config). When you’re roaming, the sim applet has to generate a path back to its home network based on request/responses with the networks it can see and their partners (and their partners’ partners etc.) It’s effectively multi-hop peer discovery and I don’t think you can encode the general case logic for it as just config. Edit: as a (rather niche) example,…

So for people who don't plan to roam, what's the point of a SIM card (embedded or not)? Credentials and a few lines of config should be enough. Do the carriers benefit when users use a SIM card?