51–60 of 84 posts
For who wonders about the waving cat: These are used a lot at hacker conferences to check if the cams are still working (and not frozen). Shenanigans on the network are of course common at these events :) So they are put on the stages while nothing is on. This was a big success and it turned out to be a bit of a mascotte :P They've become a permanent fixture now.
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But they do control it. This is a big problem in Europe. You can't get one on a prepay contract with most of the local carriers, they limit the phones they will allow them to be used on to only locally sold versions, and they often charge for a SIM swap or limit the amount of times you can change phones per month. None of these limitations were present with physical SIMs.
> You can't get one on a prepay contract with most of the local carriers, To be fair, on this particular point it can be incompetence. Telecoms have absolutely no skilled engineering capacity (third-world body shop is as good as it gets) and the entire thing runs on decades of duct tape and outdated, unsupported and vulnerable software. The most likely reason for this not to be possible on prepay is that prepay and p…
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What?? I had no idea about this. I have not had an iPhone since the 6 so I haven't followed it that closely. I remember they offered eSIM for dualsim, I had no idea they were eSIM only in the US even for primary SIM use. Wow. This will so not work over here. > I'm certain the space regained by removing the SIM slot in a US-only variant has been repurposed for...absolutely nothing. Yeah, after all the specs are no dif…
Specs typically vary slightly with LTE band support but nothing that would drive large mechanical changes. This was a deliberate move, an A/B test of sorts. Good point on the mmWave support. I wonder if that's where the antenna is located. I don't care about mmWave, nor does anyone I know, so it doesn't even cross my mind. mmWave is a dying tech. It will suffer the same fate as WiMAX. If this is the trade off (and it…
https://youtu.be/6CPFYwTOatc?t=304
It's a nice 5-element (in 1 direction of course) phased array. There seems to be no room for a second one so if you use mmWave you'll have to make sure not to cover it with your hand. Non foldable ones usually have two for that reason.
Edit: oops you weren't talking about the flip but the iPhone. In that case, no I don't think the mm wave is where the sim slot was but not 100% sure.
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Amazing, just found a video where they add a SIM slot to a US iPhone 14. The space is there and the slot just plugs right in. It required removing some resistors (to reroute the data lines from the eSIM to the slot). They didn't even cut a hole in the chassis for the SIM tray; they inserted the card before closing the lid. This proves it was purely a marketing move which makes the decision even more insane.
As soon as a critical mass of carriers across the world adopt esim the space will absolutely be used for something else. Apple is forcing the issue, trying to force carriers to adopt it. No other phone company has the leverage that Apple does. They have a lock on the majority of high value customers. A carrier that does not support the latest iPhone will lose customers to one that does. I expect more countries to be…
iPhones are irrelevant in most of the world. Unless Samsung and Xiaomi decide that they also want to ditch physical SIM, it’s not going anywhere.
From the perspective of the rest of the world, eSIM-only phones seem bizarrely crippled. Why would I want a phone that I can’t use in every country? Just another case of the US not understanding the rest of the world.
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Ah but that is really really expensive :) I can get a local SIM with 50GB data that is available with a 10 euro topup each month. Don't forget the purchasing power in Europe is much lower than in the US (especially southern Europe). For this reason local carriers are a lot cheaper too.
If argue that it's the opposite as there is competition and in civilised European countries there is working regulation etc, not like the US where carriers are able to lobby and cheat to maintain their monopolies - case in point I have unlimited everything (Inc 5g, except MMS) in country and 64G in the rest of Europe for about 30 EUR/mo
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Ah ok, but that's only for temporary use, it's not intended for real permanent usage, right? I'll consider it if I ever travel outside of europe though (roaming inside EU was fixed several years ago luckily).
What makes you think it's for temporary use? I've been using it for over a year as my only data plan.
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Ah ok, but that's only for temporary use, it's not intended for real permanent usage, right? I'll consider it if I ever travel outside of europe though (roaming inside EU was fixed several years ago luckily).
What makes you think it's for temporary use? I've been using it for over a year as my only data plan.
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> You can't get one on a prepay contract with most of the local carriers, To be fair, on this particular point it can be incompetence. Telecoms have absolutely no skilled engineering capacity (third-world body shop is as good as it gets) and the entire thing runs on decades of duct tape and outdated, unsupported and vulnerable software. The most likely reason for this not to be possible on prepay is that prepay and p…
Possible yes but why would it be the same for every carrier then?
For GSM carriers, esims add a layer of complexity because they are apparently bound to a phone. As you probably know, SIM cards can generally be swapped in.
This makes provisioning more complicated, because roaming. I never bothered to understand how GSM addressing and routing works, but I'm assuming this requirement makes things even harder to deal with.