The days of microsurgery with a paper clip to remove a tiny SIM card from a tiny tray in your iPhone may be coming to an end, according to CNN.
Apple announced that it is doing away with actual SIM cards and trays in its new iPhone 14 series in the United States at its closely-watched press event this week. The corporation is adopting eSIMs as a digital replacement in its place.
Every cell phone has a SIM card, a special identifier that allows the phone to connect to wireless networks and send and receive texts and phone calls. An “embedded” SIM, also known as a card that is permanently installed in the phone, is known as a “eSIM.” When switching carrier plans or travelling abroad and attempting to use a different service provider while there, people frequently replace their SIM cards.
In order to make it simpler for users to activate their cellular plans and to utilise various phone numbers and carriers for the same device, Apple initially introduced eSIM support for iPhones in 2018.
Apple is now putting even more emphasis on this feature by completely removing the infrastructure needed to support physical SIM cards on the iPhone 14.
According to Kaiann Drance, vice president of iPhone marketing at Apple, “with eSIM you can rapidly transfer an existing cellular plan or get a new cellular plan, all digitally,” she stated during the presentation on Wednesday.
eSIM cards, according to Drance, can make devices “more secure” because “the physical SIM card can’t be removed if your iPhone is lost or stolen.”
Some bad actors have been known to steal a physical SIM card and transfer it into a new phone in order to access someone’s information and reset their accounts, according to the Federal Communications Commission, which also claims that eSIMs have “substantial security benefits.” Because an eSIM card “cannot be stolen without stealing the phone,” it may lower this danger.
The removal of the SIM card port may, in principle, also provide room for larger batteries or other features on the phone. For a business like Apple, which is constantly working to make its products slimmer, that is no small achievement.
The removal of the SIM card slot has already sparked some complaints on social media, though it may not be as divisive as Apple’s choice to remove the headphone jack.
Particularly frequent foreign travellers are accustomed to changing out physical SIM cards in various locations and may visit locations where carriers do not yet enable the use of eSIMS. For instance, eSIM support for the iPhone 14 is not yet available in mainland China.
