Please explain this. How does this SIM standard do that? So far, I've not seen a good explanation from Nokia on this claim. In particular, why does Nokia's version of a nano SIM involve IP that Nokia needs to protect?
I don't care who wins this just as long they don't take away my right to have multiple sim cards. Isn't the Micro Sim already small enough, how much smaller do these things need to be? Apple seems to be bulking things up not making them smaller so I don't see a need there.
How do you propose a mechanism of making it "just work"? How does the phone and carrier know how to tie to each other without any user intervention? The carrier will have to know how to identify the device and to identify the subscriber. A physical SIM did that for you. It doesn't even line up with your network keys suggestion, because you can't get on a WiFi network without entering the key manually.
The CDMA system was SIM-less but it took a half hour phone call with the carrier to get things switched over to a new account or to switch phones.
Create/Use an industry standard for the key negotiation, identifying the phone, etc... It really is not a hard technical problem. Maybe you have to enter a credit card number or something to pay. Point is, swapping physical cards is primitive and unneeded. Software could do this easily. Where did i mention WiFi and how does that come up? Interesting though. My iphone, ipad, macs, etc... all work on just about any wifi router without swapping SIM cards. See what industry standards do?
just because a prior SIM-less solution sucked, does not mean everything has to suck. Look at phones before the iPhone.
For those who do not understand the value of the SIM, just go to VZ and see what it takes to switch phones when an old one dies or you loose it. Or for people like me who has a number of old phones around the house which I still use for various reason like I would not take my smart phone on a camping trip if I could help it. I move SIM card from one phone to another without a problem. Also as my kids have done they buy their friends old phones and pop their SIM and off they are running does not require any involvement form the phone company what so ever.
I do not have to swap anything. When i get a new iphone, all my information is on there....the cloud is a wonderful thing.
Well for one thing the Micro Sims is a shipped product. Nokia isn't talking about a new standard of theirs that hasn't been released yet. The Micro Sim now resides in most of their new phones, I have one in my Nokia N9 and Lumia 800. They have every to right complain, if Apple wins this that would mean all existing and future phone designs will have to be scrubbed just to accommodate a sim design that brings absolutely nothing new to the table.
It's nano sim. Micro sim is standardized already.
Otherwise, how is that anyone else's problem? They took a risk for using something new before it was ratified as a standard.
Create/Use an industry standard for the key negotiation, identifying the phone, etc... It really is not a hard technical problem. Maybe you have to enter a credit card number or something to pay. Point is, swapping physical cards is primitive and unneeded. Software could do this easily. Where did i mention WiFi and how does that come up? Interesting though. My iphone, ipad, macs, etc... all work on just about any wifi router without swapping SIM cards. See what industry standards do?
just because a prior SIM-less solution sucked, does not mean everything has to suck. Look at phones before the iPhone.
You didn't say WiFi, but that's the cardless "multi-carrier" system I'm using as a point of reference, there's nothing else close to that idea yet. You did say "The phone OS can store whatever keys are needed to get on a network." which is true, but the mechanism of moving accounts between phones and phone brands is still of concern. Then there's the matter of making you're you're not using the same line simultaneously on multiple devices, something the SIM system is designed to prevent because that causes network problems. And you have to have a system that works globally on thousands of carriers in hundreds of countries and thousands of device models, and compatible with hundreds of regulatory systems. The idea is simple, actually getting it to work so broadly takes considerable doing.
If you have never entered keys to get on your WiFi, then you're probably not secure. Sure, the computer stores the keys, but you have to have a way of getting it into the system in the first place, which is still a clumsy system.
In other words, Apple wishes to replace Nokia's SIM technology with a free one?
What a travesty that would be.
No. Apple are trying to get people to buy in to something they don't actually own, and trying to hype up something they don't own by pretending they wont be sued, despite claims by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute that whichever standard is adopted it should be royalty free.
So thankfully "travesty" averted, but that doesn't mean Apple should bring its usual Bullshit to the table. Apple's proposal is genuinely bad, and lazy. That's the main concern here, not blind brand allegiance.
OK, sounds good. So it's under way. It probably needs more time yet. Standards just take time. Maybe it's best to not have a nano SIM standard, embedded SIM is probably just a few years away at worst.
I thought you were talking about the Micro-SIM in this comment:
Micro sim is standardized already. [Apple] took a risk for using something new before it was ratified as a standard.
Relic mentioned it, and I replied to that. I thought Relic said that Nokia had already put the nano SIM into their phones already. Not about Apple taking the risk, Nokia. The misunderstanding is somewhere, I don't know exactly where it started.
I don't care who wins this just as long they don't take away my right to have multiple sim cards. Isn't the Micro Sim already small enough, how much smaller do these things need to be? Apple seems to be bulking things up not making them smaller so I don't see a need there.
So if Apple wins with their backwards compatible design it's bad. So you want Nokia or RiM to win with their incompatible design. Got it! Perfectly reasonable and objective response¡
Quote:
Originally Posted by JeffDM
Relic mentioned it, and I replied to that.
Yeah, I didn't read far enough back up the thread this morning. Mea culpa.
That's not accurate. The simple data stored on a physical SIM could be stored as printed text on a card you buy in any store and then inputted manually. This has plenty of benefits over physical SIMs, like being able to store multiple vSIMs at once and switch between them with ease.
Why isn't in legal?
First, pointing out the obvious, the Sim card is not a serial number, it's a cryptography microprocessor. Having to enter anything into the phone to activate it on the network will result in easy cloning and is highly error-prone . This is what happened with the ESN system on CDMA/TDMA/AMPS. Programming the ESN phones consisted of a long programming sequence that the average person needed to be hand-held to do. Not the case with the sim card where the customer simply relays the ICCID to the wireless provider to whitelist the sim card.
The Simcard itself is tamper-proof, and can only be emulated, not copied. This is a weakness in the GSM system that allows a MITM attack on slower larger less-complicated sim cards.
Second, when you cancel service, it removes the ICCID from the system, not the IMEI, freeing you to reuse your phone with other carriers without having to change the IMEI, by changing the physical sim card with a different ICCID. If your phone is stolen, you tell the wireless company to destroy the sim card, thus not being liable for any charges after the point of theft, and no data being recoverable. With "find my ipad" type of applications, you probably don't want to do this until you first make an effort to locate it, but if it's not recoverable, remote wipe the phone and then call the wireless company so they can't use the sim card. Stolen phones are used as burn phones by criminals, regardless of them having sim cards or not, however without being able to replace the SIM card, the phones just get garbaged or sent to africa.
The "Sim lock" or subsidy lock is used to prevent subsidized equipment from being bought and resold on the grey market, it's not terribly effective, but it ties the service to the SIM card not the device. So where as CDMA phones that are damaged requires you to buy a new phone, every time. SIM card phones you simply throw away the broken phone and buy any unlocked phone, or even sim-locked phones from the same carrier on the secondary market.
Without a sim card, the phone is tied permanently to the wireless carrier, which puts you at the whims of the carrier's poor business decisions. If the company goes bankrupt, merges or splits, you're saddled with an expensive brick. If the wireless company is hacked and all the devices are sent a "self destruct" message, your device is now unusable.
As for the size of the sim card, the actual chip's die size is about 2mmx2mm, but this is too small to physically handle, and someone could inhale it at that size. Ever try to handle screws for a watch? Apple's design is clearly meant to fit existing equipment with an adapter. The other two designs actually waste space since they just shove the contacts to the end of the card. Altogether I think all the designs don't solve the problem they're trying to solve (making it significantly smaller) and should forget about it.
Apple's design to use the tray takes up less space physically, since to use SD-like contacts requires more mechanical space to be used inside the device.
Look at the N95 that has a sim card and a microSD:
The sim card contacts takes up half the space the microSD card slot does. Given the N95 uses the regular sim card size.
In other words, Apple wishes to replace Nokia's SIM technology with a free one?
What a travesty that would be.
Don't blame others for your lack of reading comprehension. They didn't offer it free. They came up with something they wished to use and wanted to make it part of a standard to avoid paying for other patents. The royalties would be the use of other patents. Then it becomes a matter of if this design is actually worth anything. Apple wants to push it because it benefits them. That's normal, but you're just completely wrong on the issue here.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Maestro64
But Nokia is correct apple is trying to devalue what others are doing, but they set up the industry and Nokia bit at it, now apple will agree in order for the industry to grow and innovate these essential IP will need to be freely share, Apple will use the Nokia state to show they they are trying to slow down competition
It comes down to if this actually fixes something. Nokia seems to be correct in that they're using this for leverage.
First, pointing out the obvious, the Sim card is not a serial number, it's a cryptography microprocessor. Having to enter anything into the phone to activate it on the network will result in easy cloning and is highly error-prone . This is what happened with the ESN system on CDMA/TDMA/AMPS. Programming the ESN phones consisted of a long programming sequence that the average person needed to be hand-held to do. Not the case with the sim card where the customer simply relays the ICCID to the wireless provider to whitelist the sim card.
The Simcard itself is tamper-proof, and can only be emulated, not copied. This is a weakness in the GSM system that allows a MITM attack on slower larger less-complicated sim cards.
Second, when you cancel service, it removes the ICCID from the system, not the IMEI, freeing you to reuse your phone with other carriers without having to change the IMEI, by changing the physical sim card with a different ICCID. If your phone is stolen, you tell the wireless company to destroy the sim card, thus not being liable for any charges after the point of theft, and no data being recoverable. With "find my ipad" type of applications, you probably don't want to do this until you first make an effort to locate it, but if it's not recoverable, remote wipe the phone and then call the wireless company so they can't use the sim card. Stolen phones are used as burn phones by criminals, regardless of them having sim cards or not, however without being able to replace the SIM card, the phones just get garbaged or sent to africa.
The "Sim lock" or subsidy lock is used to prevent subsidized equipment from being bought and resold on the grey market, it's not terribly effective, but it ties the service to the SIM card not the device. So where as CDMA phones that are damaged requires you to buy a new phone, every time. SIM card phones you simply throw away the broken phone and buy any unlocked phone, or even sim-locked phones from the same carrier on the secondary market.
Without a sim card, the phone is tied permanently to the wireless carrier, which puts you at the whims of the carrier's poor business decisions. If the company goes bankrupt, merges or splits, you're saddled with an expensive brick. If the wireless company is hacked and all the devices are sent a "self destruct" message, your device is now unusable.
As for the size of the sim card, the actual chip's die size is about 2mmx2mm, but this is too small to physically handle, and someone could inhale it at that size. Ever try to handle screws for a watch? Apple's design is clearly meant to fit existing equipment with an adapter. The other two designs actually waste space since they just shove the contacts to the end of the card. Altogether I think all the designs don't solve the problem they're trying to solve (making it significantly smaller) and should forget about it.
Apple's design to use the tray takes up less space physically, since to use SD-like contacts requires more mechanical space to be used inside the device.
Look at the N95 that has a sim card and a microSD:
The sim card contacts takes up half the space the microSD card slot does. Given the N95 uses the regular sim card size.
That's a lot of chatter that is axiomatically incorrect. As already shown the embedded SIM offers more security and convenience for consumers.
Quote:
Originally Posted by hmm
It comes down to if this actually fixes something. Nokia seems to be correct in that they're using this for leverage.
Sure, but so is Nokia and RiM. The question is which option is better for customers. While Nokia may be tight in that the appearance and size is too close to Micro-SIM that it could cause problems backwards compatibility is the reason that it appears so similar an comes with its own inherent benefits.
Sure, but so is Nokia and RiM. The question is which option is better for customers. While Nokia may be tight in that the appearance and size is too close to Micro-SIM that it could cause problems backwards compatibility is the reason that it appears so similar an comes with its own inherent benefits.
I wasn't making a case on what was the better option. I was wondering if this solves any real problems or simply gives Apple extra patent leverage. I get the backward compatibility issue. If they're changing something from the current standard, it should actually solve current problems or problems going forward. When I look at other threads on the topic, much of the responses come down to comments on the aesthetics or size of a design rather than if it solves any engineering problems or makes it easier to swap sim cards when necessary.
Everybody should read solipsism's posts before they post their "I love SIM" comments.
Thanks. I put a lot of effort into trying to make it clear... but it was late so I probably have more than my usual share of typos.
Quote:
Originally Posted by hmm
I wasn't making a case on what was the better option. I was wondering if this solves any real problems or simply gives Apple extra patent leverage. I get the backward compatibility issue. If they're changing something from the current standard, it should actually solve current problems or problems going forward. When I look at other threads on the topic, much of the responses come down to comments on the aesthetics or size of a design rather than if it solves any engineering problems or makes it easier to swap sim cards when necessary.
Fair enough, I wasn't sure so I was just trying to be complete.
I do agree that it doesn't really solve a problem While all 3 sizes are approximately 1/2 the size of Micro-SIM it still doesn't reduce the size that much. If backwards compatibility is the most important thing ? and based on comments here and elsewhere it is ? then Apple's solution looks like the best. But it certainly not saving much space and won't really fix anything.
If backwards compatibility isn't required and they are hell bent in adding a new design this week then just go with the smallest one. RiM's choice seems to have no real need being the middle. If there are other considerations here I certainly have read them or thought of them. I guess my final question is why isn't RiM and Nokia's designs even smaller if backwards compatibility isn't a concern?
Comments
This would have to be inputted manually by the customer.
A vSIM is still a SIM.
The vSIM idea, which is similar to prepaid vouchers (except entering the voucher number):
You walk into the shop. Buy a vSIM.
Data is wirelessly transferred onto your phone. No need to input anything manually, no way to manipulate any information.
Additional network specific info might be transferred OTA upon initial subscription to the network.
Voila vSIM.
PS: Not sure if it requires a special chip (NFC) or existing wireless interfaces can be used. Same for storing the info.
In particular, why does Nokia's version of a nano SIM involve IP that Nokia needs to protect?
Why? So they can force everyone else on the planet to pay them for the 'privilege' of using it!
Please explain this. How does this SIM standard do that? So far, I've not seen a good explanation from Nokia on this claim. In particular, why does Nokia's version of a nano SIM involve IP that Nokia needs to protect?
I don't care who wins this just as long they don't take away my right to have multiple sim cards. Isn't the Micro Sim already small enough, how much smaller do these things need to be? Apple seems to be bulking things up not making them smaller so I don't see a need there.
How do you propose a mechanism of making it "just work"? How does the phone and carrier know how to tie to each other without any user intervention? The carrier will have to know how to identify the device and to identify the subscriber. A physical SIM did that for you. It doesn't even line up with your network keys suggestion, because you can't get on a WiFi network without entering the key manually.
The CDMA system was SIM-less but it took a half hour phone call with the carrier to get things switched over to a new account or to switch phones.
Create/Use an industry standard for the key negotiation, identifying the phone, etc... It really is not a hard technical problem. Maybe you have to enter a credit card number or something to pay. Point is, swapping physical cards is primitive and unneeded. Software could do this easily. Where did i mention WiFi and how does that come up? Interesting though. My iphone, ipad, macs, etc... all work on just about any wifi router without swapping SIM cards. See what industry standards do?
just because a prior SIM-less solution sucked, does not mean everything has to suck. Look at phones before the iPhone.
For those who do not understand the value of the SIM, just go to VZ and see what it takes to switch phones when an old one dies or you loose it. Or for people like me who has a number of old phones around the house which I still use for various reason like I would not take my smart phone on a camping trip if I could help it. I move SIM card from one phone to another without a problem. Also as my kids have done they buy their friends old phones and pop their SIM and off they are running does not require any involvement form the phone company what so ever.
I do not have to swap anything. When i get a new iphone, all my information is on there....the cloud is a wonderful thing.
Well for one thing the Micro Sims is a shipped product. Nokia isn't talking about a new standard of theirs that hasn't been released yet. The Micro Sim now resides in most of their new phones, I have one in my Nokia N9 and Lumia 800. They have every to right complain, if Apple wins this that would mean all existing and future phone designs will have to be scrubbed just to accommodate a sim design that brings absolutely nothing new to the table.
It's nano sim. Micro sim is standardized already.
Otherwise, how is that anyone else's problem? They took a risk for using something new before it was ratified as a standard.
Create/Use an industry standard for the key negotiation, identifying the phone, etc... It really is not a hard technical problem. Maybe you have to enter a credit card number or something to pay. Point is, swapping physical cards is primitive and unneeded. Software could do this easily. Where did i mention WiFi and how does that come up? Interesting though. My iphone, ipad, macs, etc... all work on just about any wifi router without swapping SIM cards. See what industry standards do?
just because a prior SIM-less solution sucked, does not mean everything has to suck. Look at phones before the iPhone.
You didn't say WiFi, but that's the cardless "multi-carrier" system I'm using as a point of reference, there's nothing else close to that idea yet. You did say "The phone OS can store whatever keys are needed to get on a network." which is true, but the mechanism of moving accounts between phones and phone brands is still of concern. Then there's the matter of making you're you're not using the same line simultaneously on multiple devices, something the SIM system is designed to prevent because that causes network problems. And you have to have a system that works globally on thousands of carriers in hundreds of countries and thousands of device models, and compatible with hundreds of regulatory systems. The idea is simple, actually getting it to work so broadly takes considerable doing.
If you have never entered keys to get on your WiFi, then you're probably not secure. Sure, the computer stores the keys, but you have to have a way of getting it into the system in the first place, which is still a clumsy system.
In other words, Apple wishes to replace Nokia's SIM technology with a free one?
What a travesty that would be.
No. Apple are trying to get people to buy in to something they don't actually own, and trying to hype up something they don't own by pretending they wont be sued, despite claims by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute that whichever standard is adopted it should be royalty free.
So thankfully "travesty" averted, but that doesn't mean Apple should bring its usual Bullshit to the table. Apple's proposal is genuinely bad, and lazy. That's the main concern here, not blind brand allegiance.
http://www.theverge.com/2012/3/26/29...o-sim-gsm-etsi
but seriously who even swaps out their sims nowadays?
I do. I use a different sim for each country I visit. Right now I'm connected on my Thai sim.
It's nano sim. Micro sim is standardized already.
Otherwise, how is that anyone else's problem? They took a risk for using something new before it was ratified as a standard.
I'm under the impression the Micro-SIM was ratified in 2004.
PS: The GSMA was looking to create an embedded SIM back in 2010. It addresses many of the issues I mentioned earlier in this thread plus a few more.
I'm under the impression the Micro-SIM was ratified in 2004.
I'm under the impression this is mainly about the nano SIM though. I don't know what caused the micro SIM to be under discussion.
PS: The GSMA was looking to create an embedded SIM back in 2010. It addresses many of the issues I mentioned earlier in this thread plus a few more.
OK, sounds good. So it's under way. It probably needs more time yet. Standards just take time. Maybe it's best to not have a nano SIM standard, embedded SIM is probably just a few years away at worst.
I'm under the impression this is mainly about the nano SIM though. I don't know what caused the micro SIM to be under discussion.
I thought you were talking about the Micro-SIM in this comment:
I thought you were talking about the Micro-SIM in this comment:
Relic mentioned it, and I replied to that. I thought Relic said that Nokia had already put the nano SIM into their phones already. Not about Apple taking the risk, Nokia. The misunderstanding is somewhere, I don't know exactly where it started.
I don't care who wins this just as long they don't take away my right to have multiple sim cards. Isn't the Micro Sim already small enough, how much smaller do these things need to be? Apple seems to be bulking things up not making them smaller so I don't see a need there.
So if Apple wins with their backwards compatible design it's bad. So you want Nokia or RiM to win with their incompatible design. Got it! Perfectly reasonable and objective response¡
Relic mentioned it, and I replied to that.
Yeah, I didn't read far enough back up the thread this morning. Mea culpa.
That's not accurate. The simple data stored on a physical SIM could be stored as printed text on a card you buy in any store and then inputted manually. This has plenty of benefits over physical SIMs, like being able to store multiple vSIMs at once and switch between them with ease.
Why isn't in legal?
First, pointing out the obvious, the Sim card is not a serial number, it's a cryptography microprocessor. Having to enter anything into the phone to activate it on the network will result in easy cloning and is highly error-prone . This is what happened with the ESN system on CDMA/TDMA/AMPS. Programming the ESN phones consisted of a long programming sequence that the average person needed to be hand-held to do. Not the case with the sim card where the customer simply relays the ICCID to the wireless provider to whitelist the sim card.
The Simcard itself is tamper-proof, and can only be emulated, not copied. This is a weakness in the GSM system that allows a MITM attack on slower larger less-complicated sim cards.
Second, when you cancel service, it removes the ICCID from the system, not the IMEI, freeing you to reuse your phone with other carriers without having to change the IMEI, by changing the physical sim card with a different ICCID. If your phone is stolen, you tell the wireless company to destroy the sim card, thus not being liable for any charges after the point of theft, and no data being recoverable. With "find my ipad" type of applications, you probably don't want to do this until you first make an effort to locate it, but if it's not recoverable, remote wipe the phone and then call the wireless company so they can't use the sim card. Stolen phones are used as burn phones by criminals, regardless of them having sim cards or not, however without being able to replace the SIM card, the phones just get garbaged or sent to africa.
The "Sim lock" or subsidy lock is used to prevent subsidized equipment from being bought and resold on the grey market, it's not terribly effective, but it ties the service to the SIM card not the device. So where as CDMA phones that are damaged requires you to buy a new phone, every time. SIM card phones you simply throw away the broken phone and buy any unlocked phone, or even sim-locked phones from the same carrier on the secondary market.
Without a sim card, the phone is tied permanently to the wireless carrier, which puts you at the whims of the carrier's poor business decisions. If the company goes bankrupt, merges or splits, you're saddled with an expensive brick. If the wireless company is hacked and all the devices are sent a "self destruct" message, your device is now unusable.
As for the size of the sim card, the actual chip's die size is about 2mmx2mm, but this is too small to physically handle, and someone could inhale it at that size. Ever try to handle screws for a watch? Apple's design is clearly meant to fit existing equipment with an adapter. The other two designs actually waste space since they just shove the contacts to the end of the card. Altogether I think all the designs don't solve the problem they're trying to solve (making it significantly smaller) and should forget about it.
Apple's design to use the tray takes up less space physically, since to use SD-like contacts requires more mechanical space to be used inside the device.
Look at the N95 that has a sim card and a microSD:
The sim card contacts takes up half the space the microSD card slot does. Given the N95 uses the regular sim card size.
In other words, Apple wishes to replace Nokia's SIM technology with a free one?
What a travesty that would be.
Don't blame others for your lack of reading comprehension. They didn't offer it free. They came up with something they wished to use and wanted to make it part of a standard to avoid paying for other patents. The royalties would be the use of other patents. Then it becomes a matter of if this design is actually worth anything. Apple wants to push it because it benefits them. That's normal, but you're just completely wrong on the issue here.
But Nokia is correct apple is trying to devalue what others are doing, but they set up the industry and Nokia bit at it, now apple will agree in order for the industry to grow and innovate these essential IP will need to be freely share, Apple will use the Nokia state to show they they are trying to slow down competition
It comes down to if this actually fixes something. Nokia seems to be correct in that they're using this for leverage.
First, pointing out the obvious, the Sim card is not a serial number, it's a cryptography microprocessor. Having to enter anything into the phone to activate it on the network will result in easy cloning and is highly error-prone . This is what happened with the ESN system on CDMA/TDMA/AMPS. Programming the ESN phones consisted of a long programming sequence that the average person needed to be hand-held to do. Not the case with the sim card where the customer simply relays the ICCID to the wireless provider to whitelist the sim card.
The Simcard itself is tamper-proof, and can only be emulated, not copied. This is a weakness in the GSM system that allows a MITM attack on slower larger less-complicated sim cards.
Second, when you cancel service, it removes the ICCID from the system, not the IMEI, freeing you to reuse your phone with other carriers without having to change the IMEI, by changing the physical sim card with a different ICCID. If your phone is stolen, you tell the wireless company to destroy the sim card, thus not being liable for any charges after the point of theft, and no data being recoverable. With "find my ipad" type of applications, you probably don't want to do this until you first make an effort to locate it, but if it's not recoverable, remote wipe the phone and then call the wireless company so they can't use the sim card. Stolen phones are used as burn phones by criminals, regardless of them having sim cards or not, however without being able to replace the SIM card, the phones just get garbaged or sent to africa.
The "Sim lock" or subsidy lock is used to prevent subsidized equipment from being bought and resold on the grey market, it's not terribly effective, but it ties the service to the SIM card not the device. So where as CDMA phones that are damaged requires you to buy a new phone, every time. SIM card phones you simply throw away the broken phone and buy any unlocked phone, or even sim-locked phones from the same carrier on the secondary market.
Without a sim card, the phone is tied permanently to the wireless carrier, which puts you at the whims of the carrier's poor business decisions. If the company goes bankrupt, merges or splits, you're saddled with an expensive brick. If the wireless company is hacked and all the devices are sent a "self destruct" message, your device is now unusable.
As for the size of the sim card, the actual chip's die size is about 2mmx2mm, but this is too small to physically handle, and someone could inhale it at that size. Ever try to handle screws for a watch? Apple's design is clearly meant to fit existing equipment with an adapter. The other two designs actually waste space since they just shove the contacts to the end of the card. Altogether I think all the designs don't solve the problem they're trying to solve (making it significantly smaller) and should forget about it.
Apple's design to use the tray takes up less space physically, since to use SD-like contacts requires more mechanical space to be used inside the device.
Look at the N95 that has a sim card and a microSD:
The sim card contacts takes up half the space the microSD card slot does. Given the N95 uses the regular sim card size.
That's a lot of chatter that is axiomatically incorrect. As already shown the embedded SIM offers more security and convenience for consumers.
It comes down to if this actually fixes something. Nokia seems to be correct in that they're using this for leverage.
Sure, but so is Nokia and RiM. The question is which option is better for customers. While Nokia may be tight in that the appearance and size is too close to Micro-SIM that it could cause problems backwards compatibility is the reason that it appears so similar an comes with its own inherent benefits.
Sure, but so is Nokia and RiM. The question is which option is better for customers. While Nokia may be tight in that the appearance and size is too close to Micro-SIM that it could cause problems backwards compatibility is the reason that it appears so similar an comes with its own inherent benefits.
I wasn't making a case on what was the better option. I was wondering if this solves any real problems or simply gives Apple extra patent leverage. I get the backward compatibility issue. If they're changing something from the current standard, it should actually solve current problems or problems going forward. When I look at other threads on the topic, much of the responses come down to comments on the aesthetics or size of a design rather than if it solves any engineering problems or makes it easier to swap sim cards when necessary.
Everybody should read solipsism's posts before they post their "I love SIM" comments.
Thanks. I put a lot of effort into trying to make it clear... but it was late so I probably have more than my usual share of typos.
I wasn't making a case on what was the better option. I was wondering if this solves any real problems or simply gives Apple extra patent leverage. I get the backward compatibility issue. If they're changing something from the current standard, it should actually solve current problems or problems going forward. When I look at other threads on the topic, much of the responses come down to comments on the aesthetics or size of a design rather than if it solves any engineering problems or makes it easier to swap sim cards when necessary.
Fair enough, I wasn't sure so I was just trying to be complete.
I do agree that it doesn't really solve a problem While all 3 sizes are approximately 1/2 the size of Micro-SIM it still doesn't reduce the size that much. If backwards compatibility is the most important thing ? and based on comments here and elsewhere it is ? then Apple's solution looks like the best. But it certainly not saving much space and won't really fix anything.
If backwards compatibility isn't required and they are hell bent in adding a new design this week then just go with the smallest one. RiM's choice seems to have no real need being the middle. If there are other considerations here I certainly have read them or thought of them. I guess my final question is why isn't RiM and Nokia's designs even smaller if backwards compatibility isn't a concern?