Apple has always been advocating the abandonment of the industry's accustomed interface or design is quite active, such as canceling the 3.5mm headphone jack of the mobile phone, actively promoting wireless charging as a supplement to wired charging, and using wireless synchronization instead of wired data transmission, etc. Previously, the industry has reported that Apple intends to cancel the physical SIM card slot of the iPhone, fully embrace eSIM, and now there are well-known whistleblowers who claim that Apple does intend to do this, and even has been tested internally, but due to the complexity involved, Apple has not been abolished The exact schedule for the iPhone SIM card slot.
According to the well-known whistleblower Dylan DKT, he agrees with the industry that Apple intends to cancel the SIM card slot, but it is impossible to determine whether Apple will start to implement it in 2022 or 2023 according to the revelations, but Apple does actively want to promote the full eSIM of the iPhone, and Apple has also tested the iPhone with a full eSIM design internally.
I am in agreement with recent rumors regarding the removal of the physical SIM card tray. In February, I had shared the following information below: https://t.co/zOyeJr0V1d
— Dylan (@dylandkt) December 27, 2021
Sim card slot is through the physical card as a way to confirm the telecommunications account, this is due to the invention of the mobile phone, in order to solve the mobile phone using the physical burning method to log in the trouble of the solution, instead of writing the mobile phone information into the chip card, and access through the reader in the mobile phone, and the chip card is the choice that has been evaluated at that time for both security and technical availability, but after all, it is also a technology that has been invented for more than 30 years, and the card form has also changed in four stages, and the current mainstream was launched in 2012 Nano-SIM 。
From the point of view of device design, the biggest problem of the SIM card slot is the occupation of the mobile phone mechanism space and reduce the reliability of the mobile phone, after all, the size of the card tray will still be greater than the card itself, and it is also necessary to install a reader and other mechanisms in the mobile phone, in addition, the card slot design also represents that the outside of the mobile phone will add holes, and will also increase the influence of water and dust inside the mobile phone. With the thinness and miniaturization of mobile phones, the mobile phone industry has not tried to maximize the use of mobile phone internal space, and the eSIM that appeared in 2017 is seen as an alternative to the new generation of SIM cards.
▲The physical SIM card occupies the internal space of the mobile phone, and the card slot design will also increase the risk of water and dust inside the mobile phone
The concept of eSIM is to replace the SIM card through the chip in the mobile phone, which can be opened through the OTA method, on the one hand, the mobile phone no longer needs the card slot, on the other hand, because it is a replicable chip design, the conversion of telecommunications and services can be carried out in the OTA way, and the user does not need to go to the telecom service in person to apply for and receive the card, theoretically, the conversion service can be used at the moment of OTA activation; However, for telecom operators, there are also concerns about the convenience of OTAs, which makes it easy to churn customers.
From the perspective of the industry, the conversion to eSIM is conducive to the mobile phone industry to enhance the flexibility of the design, but for the telecom industry is worried about the problem of easy loss of customers after the conversion, so that the current eSIM is more as the second card slot of the mobile phone, dare not rush to completely replace the physical SIM card, such as in Taiwan, even if the iPhone is not the only smart phone with eSIM, but the telecom industry only provides eSIM services for the iPhone, and the application method and restrictions are more complex than the physical SIM card.