Probably for the best: Apple makes sure eSIMs won't nuke the operators The great techno-utopian fantasy for years has been that eSIMs will destroy mobile networks' lock on customers – allowing real-time switching. The phone would tune into the best signal. This notion was touted by the same sort of people who 15 years ago thought Wi-Fi would kill off mobile networks – Clay Shirky, WiReD magazine …
Having a hard time seeing the logic in that, is it because 'Max' is (usually) a male name?
Or is it because of size, since the XS is very slightly larger than the 8? I guess that the XS Max is very slightly smaller than the 8 plus doesn't count for anything? Or is it because they dropped the SE?
The idea there isn't space isn't the reason Apple have taken this path, the Chinese version of the iPhone XS will ship with a sim tray that takes two physical nano sims on each side of the tray i.e. a real dual sim iPhone, with no eSim capability.
If this was available in the UK, it would be the version I'd buy, as I'm sure most would too. Let's face it, being able to swap out dual sims as you please is a lot more flexible than an eSim controlled by Apple.
That's because it destroys the business case for spending even a penny on new network capacity
Which is the reason the network should not be owned by the operators. We should have a compatible network infrastructure that space is rented/leased. I assume how MVNO's work now renting from an incumbent.
@ Inventor of the Marmite Laser, "I guess he means summat a bit like Crown House (and one other I cant recall) who run TV transmitters,". IIRC:
BBC Transmission > CTXI > Crown Castle > National Grid Wireless > Arqiva
IBA (Transmission bit in Winchester) > NTL > Arqiva.
So Arqiva (owned by infrastructure funds like Macquarie) now owns pretty much all the broadcast infrastructure in the UK.
Icon, Non-ionising radiation etc.
Or we could also throw out the pointless middlemen who would only exist to leech money. MVNOs can only exist by eliminating their own profit margin and in turn treat turn their employees into minimum wage slaves in order to pay for it. How can an MVNO manage to carry out the billing admin cheaper than the network owner? They cannot. Not possible for an extended period of time.
"How can an MVNO manage to carry out the billing admin cheaper than the network owner?"
They can do it because they are somewhat less greedy about gouging their customers.
I currently carry two personal phones, one with a large monopolistic carrier and one with a MVNO, and I have had a chance to watch both in action for many years....
They can do it because they are somewhat less greedy about gouging their customers.
An MVNO is a customer too.
They exist because it's a cheap way for the network operators to sell more airtime without having to make their own brand more palatable to customers looking for a better deal.
Possibly a bit like Lexus vs Toyota, except Lexus would be the original and they'd contracted out the Toyota brand but kept the factory that made them.
having a real hissy fit with Apple over this and demanding that the E-Sim is blocked on the phones they doll out in their contracts. For them it is all about lock-in. If you decry Apple for having a walled garden, the likes of AT&T have a far better one. Their bills are pieces of art with all sorts of extra charges and addons. Then AFAIK, one US network charges $80 to unlock the phone at the end of the contract.
It seems that in Europe things are a bit different. Many of us are on Sim Only deals these days. With one-month rolling contracts or PAYG we have far more flexibility over who we use as our network provider.
I can see business travellers using the E-SIm for their main network and buying a local PAYG when at your destinations. Granted, this is easier said than done in some places like India but it can even be done there.
My old Samsung Galaxy that I bought in Dubai years ago always had a local and a UK Sim card in it. Sadly the version of Android it used plus the Samsung crud that was layered on top meant that using it was shit.
Yes, Apple may have won a power struggle with networks; now they can leverage that to get favourable terms (for themselves, not customers) when deciding which network(s) to support with new phones. The name has changed but the game is still to make as much money as possible by any means necessary...
Then AFAIK, one US network charges $80 to unlock the phone at the end of the contract.
That US network is called Sprint, and in addition to the charge, they have strict requirements (only the phone's original account holder can do it, must be fully paid, etc etc etc)
Hoping to eventually drop a physical SIM if/when most operators eventually support eSIM. I wonder if the Chinese version actually supports three SIMs, or if the eSIM is disabled in those models that have two physical SIMs?
It is interesting that eSIM wasn't deemed good enough for the Chinese market. I wonder if that has something to do with China's unique mobile standards (TD-LTE etc.) or if Apple believes their operators will be particularly resistant to eSIM? Maybe the Chinese government won't allow eSIM for some reason?
With some provisos eSIMs some really interesting potential functionality falls out of being just software on a device.
The phone could intelligently choose the best SIM out of my collection for the location I'm in. I could "pin" the main SIM for incoming calls, but set data and outgoing calls through my roaming SIM. I could buy SIMs and have them sent to my phone. Phone networks could even allow me to connect and purchase a SIM when I roam their network for the first time. SIMs could have properties like expiring after 30 days or after the credit is used up etc.
The provisos I would see being necessary are the ability to transfer SIMs between devices, the ability to add any SIM, and limits on what operators can do to lock a phone to their network, restrict its functionality, or to prevent me removing their software SIM if I choose to switch.
I'd like the ability to have several handsets and choose one for whatever I'm doing that day - whichever phone I'm carrying will have my number. This is currently possible but involves the faff (and physical wear and tear of mechanical components) of swapping a physical SIM. A good phone for a long train journey might not be the best phone for a long hike or a night on the town.
My operator used to have a service like this, for 3.90 Euro a month I got 5 extra SIM cards, all with the same phone number. All phones rang at the same time, but SMS only arrived on the main phone.
Apparently this was too good of a serviy, because they only sold it for a few months. I used it for about 8 years before my level of geekiness dropped to having only one phone.
"The phone could intelligently choose the best SIM out of my collection for the location I'm in. I could "pin" the main SIM for incoming calls, but set data and outgoing calls through my roaming SIM. I could buy SIMs and have them sent to my phone. Phone networks could even allow me to connect and purchase a SIM when I roam their network for the first time. SIMs could have properties like expiring after 30 days or after the credit is used up etc."
That's not how it works. A SIM is associated with a phone number. Two SIMs, two phone numbers. Many people will use that to have a private phone and a works phone in the same case. If your wife calls your private number, the private phone SIM is used. If your boss calls you on the works number, the works phone SIM is used. And when you call your boss, you want to call him using your works phone number, so again the works phone Sim is used.
@gnasher729 "That's not how it works" ......
It's largely how I use my 3 year old dual SIM phone. Incoming calls almost always use my main number as I never tell people my second number and "might" choose not to answer should they call it. I can and do use either of my phone numbers for outgoing calls and I can select one or the other (or none) for my data connection.
But there seem to be a lot of people who are quite resistant to the idea, believing it will somehow allow Apple to limit their carrier choices or is part of an evil Apple plan to cut the carriers out and operate their own mandatory MVNO.
Obviously eSIM isn't all that great if only Apple uses it, because even if every carrier supported it, it wouldn't be portable to non-Apple phones the way current SIMs are. By finally putting the eSIM in a phone it will encourage carriers to support it, and if enough do then other phones will adopt eSIM as well. Before people worry about the mention of "Apple patents" around eSIM and think this is a money grab, they've offered a royalty free license to anyone who adopts the technology. They just want it used.
By finally putting the eSIM in a phone it will encourage carriers to support it, and if enough do then other phones will adopt eSIM as well.
Indeed, and it's a terrible future to consider. Because once eSIM is widely adopted, manufacturers like Apple can start dropping the real SIM and produce eSIM only devices. That then gives them complete control over which networks you can use - should they so wish.
They COULD make it so that any carrier can remotely provision the eSIM, or they COULD make it so that you have to use their cloud portal or similar to do it. The latter gives them 100% control over which networks you can choose - probably based on how much the network is prepared to give Apple.
The article talks about punters, but what about business that need widespread reception? Do have any clout when negotiating with network operators?
We had a technician come to our site the other day to inspect a gas tank, but he soon went away because apparently he needed some app for the task and his network is poor around here.
If the experience on my iPad is anything to go by, I’d rather have the two physical SIMs any day.
Also, am I the only one thinking that this puts WAY too much power on apple’s side?
The handset should be utterly network agnostic and log into whichever network it has a SIM for.
eSIM means networks will have to actually engage with Apple in order to allow their offers to show up on a selection menu.
I suspect it may be free now but what’s to stop Apple charging networks for the privilege?
Also, am I the only one thinking that this puts WAY too much power on apple’s side?
With network-locked phones, Apple already has *all* the power. The phone won't (un)lock except if it phones home to mothership.
Try (factory-)unlocking a network-locked iPhone. eBay is filled with iPhones that won't unlock.
Maybe I misunderstood you but I’m Not sure that’s true - recently returned from a few years in the States. Forgot to unlock the iPhone before returning, Apple would not and could not unlock the phone - the ability to do that is maintained by the network operator if it’s a network locked phone. 10 minute call to the States (T-Mobile) and the phone was unlocked. According to Apple, this is to ensure they didn’t help people break their commitment and contracts with the network operator.
"Try (factory-)unlocking a network-locked iPhone. eBay is filled with iPhones that won't unlock."
I think you are confusing two things - iPhones locked to a network, and iPhones locked with a passcode.
If you use a passcode for your phone and it gets locked, you need the passcode to unlock it. If you are the rightful owner and forgot the passcode (your own fault), or you are a thief with a stolen phone, or you are the unfortunate heir of a deceased person with an iPhone and don't know the passcode, then there is just no f***ing way to unlock that phone. You can't do it, Apple can't do it. There are plenty of such phones on eBay, and they are worthless except to be used for parts. Most of them I expect to be stolen.
If your phone is locked to a network, the network operator can unlock it. Many don't like to do it, and try to make it impossible for you to unlock. The easiest way around is to buy a phone from Apple directly, they are all unlocked and as far as I know, the network operator you pick can't lock them.
Networks don't have to engage with Apple, they might not be on a convenient list but there's a way to enter the information anyway. That's required by the 3GPP standard that was approved for eSIM - and is necessary for the main reason eSIM was eventually approved against some operator's wishes, IOT devices where even the size of a nanoSIM might be unwieldy.
Some people always ascribe evil intent to everything Apple does. I remember the whining and moaning when Apple introduced nanoSIM and everyone was worried about the fact Apple had patents around it and thought their promises of a royalty free license would have a hidden gotcha they'd use against Android. Still waiting for that to happen.
Which makes the reason suspect.
An eSIM a thin end of a wedge. Apple want control of your operator access eventually.
You can fit an SD card and a physical SIM in a watch. It's just a lie that Apple don't have space for microSD card, 3.5mm jack and two real SIMs. It's about control and partly (like the notch) about differentiation. Not about cost or space.
3GPP rules around eSIM require devices provide a way to access any operator. Apple may not have a clickable icon for every 2 bit operator in the whole world, but you'll be able to enter the necessary info manually. I can't remember what the operator ID is, but I think it is something like 7 digits so hardly an insurmountable obstacle for operators who don't get an icon.
Bingo. Apple have only done this because it suits them. Either as something to assist negotiations with carriers or some other reason. They want to own everything. It's not unreasonable to anticipate them becoming an MVNO in certain regions. Imagine that, buy iPhone, fire it up, set up iTunes account, choose default Apple network, all your base are belong to us.
I have had for several years on my iphone a UK and US phone number both simultaneously working. I could have up to 8 international numbers all able to ring my phone regardless of which country I am in. A single sim can already do that. Two sims is good and might be able to save me money but selecting the right plan in every country is going to be a lot of work.
I expect the main reason for not having eSIM in China is that the profile downloads would be blocked by the great firewall due to being encrypted.
Rather than the eSIM slot being secondary to the physical slot, it is the physical SIM slot that is secondary - it is there to allow these early eSIM devices to still work on networks that are not eSIM ready. It also means your £1000+ iPhone isn’t going to be bricked if something goes wrong with the eSIM. I’d give it a year or two before the physical SIM slot joins the headphone socket in the history books.
The physical SIM slot can only go away if eSIM is pretty much universally supported by carriers. There needs to be devices out there that implement eSIM (in greater numbers than iPads with built in cellular) to push that along.
Eventually all operators will have to support eSIM, as the reason 3GPP finally ended up approving it after years of operator resistance wasn't because Apple was championing it. It is because makers of IOT devices wanted a way to go without a physical SIM for ease of deployment, or future devices where even a nanoSIM's size might be a problem.
As for the great firewall being a problem, encrypted traffic can pass through it just requires approval from the government. I wouldn't think profile updates for Chinese carriers would be a problem. You wouldn't need profile updates for non-Chinese carriers while inside China, you can get those once outside the firewall. I doubt that's the reason for two physical SIMs in China. Probably more that eSIM isn't an option yet and people are using multiple SIMs today - if they only support one physical SIM there they have to wait for eSIM support before they can win those two SIM customers.
"I’d give it a year or two before the physical SIM slot joins the headphone socket in the history books."
But the dual SIMs will stay, even if they become to eSims. The benefit for Apple: Lots of people want two phone numbers. Today, they might buy a $750 iPhone and a $250 Android phone. In the future, they would buy one iPhone, and since they save $250 they might go for the $1,000 iPhone. So the dual SIM will make Apple more money. (Plus the buyers who paid $750 for two Android phones and might switch to a single iPhone).
The concept of destroying telco control isn't new. Google attempted to create an environment where phones could roam over multiple networks while routing telephone services through a consistent central point. I really liked the idea but the implementation had too many problems for me to try it. The biggest problems being that Google is a personal data collection corporation and Sprint's unreliable network was in the mix.
"When you try to make Wi-Fi cover a wide area, it's absolutely the worst way to do it, Martin Cooper, told CNET recently. Cooper is credited as the first person to make a cellphone call (in 1973, he led Motorola's cellular project).
"In order to cover a city, you need a million sites; we actually did an analysis of that. And every one of them has got to have backhaul. So it turns out it's neither economical nor practical. "
And yet 15 years later proponents of 5G are going exactly the same route. Fascinating.
"In order to cover a city, you need a million sites; we actually did an analysis of that. And every one of them has got to have backhaul. So it turns out it's neither economical nor practical. "
The same applies to mobile cells at the kinds of densities 5G envisages. The difference being that cellular systems have more frequencies available than Wifi and the built-in ability to turn down the transmitter power to a gnat's fart or less instead of blasting out at 100mW regardless of link strength.
Just come back from a trip to the UK. My iPad has a plastic SIM from my Australian Supplier. It was really useful to just switch to the built in eSIM for a local UK provider, it worked.
In a phone I could see that this would be useful, a friend wants to have one of the SIMs on a cheap prepaid plan just for crap callers (like car salesmen, insurance touts, etc.) and then periodically kill and replace the cheap plan.
The most important announcement of the day. Two reasons. Phone operators are rubbish. Particularly with transatlantic support. Verizon (by market and software design) don't know that there's a world outside of a zipcode, you can barely dial a number on some models and native two number support isn't.
Also, if you work in a recorded industry to prevent theft and greed. There's more than one global operator with clever integrated back-ends that will be dancing with joy. Also £1050 is less than two current iPhones.
Also can someone make a full size thin solar panel. The large form factor is more popular than the small.
#buyanoperator #dontlookinthehandbag
Google's Project Fi is already doing this (with eSIM on the Pixel 2 and standard SIMs in other phones) and despite its faults and flaws works incredibly well. Largely seamless switching between T-Mobile, Sprint, US Cellular and will roam on Verizon when nothing else is available. The SIM card has IMSI profiles for each network. In some places it will also roam on AT&T. It switches automatically between networks and leverages whatever is best in an area. Then, when abroad, its one price, $10 per gig and .20 per minute for phone calls, texts and pic messages are unlimited. Also, if there's a Three network in the country being visited and/or roaming on Three would provide a better experience, the SIM has a Three IMSI and will utilize that network all without any notification or involvement by the user. If one wishes, they can force the phone to any of the networks, although if in the US, one cannot force the Three SIM profile.
Google Fi is just an MVNO, with roaming agreements to multiple networks and a list of preferred networks. Nothing magic there in a technical sense. You only need a single IMSI. Switching to a different IMSI on the same directory number and a different network is essentially porting the number and cannot be done instantaneously nor transparently to the user to protect against slamming. They use a USA country code (310) and MNC (260).
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People have your number, for example. How would people find you in a real-time switching world?
Ahhh, that's cute, someone is still using there phone as a telephone.
The truth is the majority of usage is data, and data doesn't need a number. But data can be very expensive if you are roaming, so most people turn it off. However if you could get a esim for each region or even a esim per provider for areas are patchy and switch between them as needed, then that's pretty useful
Of course not everyone would need this and it would mean you having money tied up in PAYG that you may never use, but if you are buying a £1500 iphone, I'm sort of guessing penny pinching is not high on your priorities
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