The case for a dual-SIM iPhone
Apple has avoided making dual-SIM phones, probably because this is a use-case that is popular only in a few developing countries.
However, that line of thinking totally misses the point. Dual-SIM phones are really valuable when you travel overseas - and don't want to deal with ridiculous roaming charges! The only reasonable option is to get a local SIM card - but without dual-SIM phones, that becomes a painful option.
- you have to lug two phones around.
- all your contacts, messages and apps end up on the phone you aren't using.
- you probably need to set up a hotspot to share data - which may not be permitted, or will drain battery life quickly.
- when you complete your trip, you have a nightmare getting messages, contacts, etc. from one phone to the other.
Apple needs to look at dual-SIM phones as a problem that users have, and for which existing solutions aren't great. An Apple solution can be designed to work way better.
The people who travel overseas probably represent the cream of current and potential Apple customers. And forcing them to give up on iPhone and use Android based dual-SIM phones just for the sake of convenience during a few weeks a year of travel doesn't make sense at all.
However, that line of thinking totally misses the point. Dual-SIM phones are really valuable when you travel overseas - and don't want to deal with ridiculous roaming charges! The only reasonable option is to get a local SIM card - but without dual-SIM phones, that becomes a painful option.
- you have to lug two phones around.
- all your contacts, messages and apps end up on the phone you aren't using.
- you probably need to set up a hotspot to share data - which may not be permitted, or will drain battery life quickly.
- when you complete your trip, you have a nightmare getting messages, contacts, etc. from one phone to the other.
Apple needs to look at dual-SIM phones as a problem that users have, and for which existing solutions aren't great. An Apple solution can be designed to work way better.
The people who travel overseas probably represent the cream of current and potential Apple customers. And forcing them to give up on iPhone and use Android based dual-SIM phones just for the sake of convenience during a few weeks a year of travel doesn't make sense at all.
Comments
- paper clip
- You’d have to do that with a single phone anyway
- or a paper clip
Or maybe I’m missing something. I’m used to CDMA phones, but I popped an Irish O2 SIM in my first-gen iPhone once.
I’m reminded of the Fake Steve Jobs story about making the internals of a computer symmetrical (as a takeoff of Steve’s story about his father teaching him to put the same amount of care into the beauty of what only you will see as what everyone sees when building something). Or was that real... This has always been my greatest fear–that I’d get to the point where my memory is so bad I can’t keep straight what was and what might have been.
http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/embedded-sim-cards-apple-samsung-gsma/
http://www.trustedreviews.com/opinions/what-is-an-e-sim
https://www.apple.com/ipad/apple-sim/
Some countries don't support it but all they'd need to do is have the Apple Sim and a physical sim and then you can support everything and have multiple carrier accounts. This would be a selling point for the iPhone 7 as you can travel to another country, get a topup service with data allowance online without needing anything physically delivered and no roaming charges.
LTE vs fallback 3G and the like. For an overseas visit being about to keep your home sim in charge of the voice connection but letting the data radio switch to a local account sim would be a good solution if possible without adding to much additional hardware.
(2) different country uses different frequency, therefore you will need different antenna - that is why international phone a bit more pricy. not mention the difference of GSM CDMA (ATT vs VZ for example).
(3) physical sim is good if design in for easy swap - you really don't need two sims if you travel between two countries - you can't really in two places at sametime. IMHO. majority of the design was not intend to swap sim easily... except asia country see the needs.
(4) as long as the antenna covers the frequency, soft sim would be better for swap... however, i can see user easily mistakenly (intentionally or unintentionally) /"forgot" to swap... that is another can of worms. (Hillary email type for example ;-).
And some posts above - whether its even possible to have one phone with 2 SIMs and 2 networks - pretty much every single Android phone works this way today. This is a requirement that's more and more of a weakness in the iPhone.
I know several people whose only reason to not get the iPhone is because of no support for dual SIM! Maybe Apple will wake up 2 years later and add dual SIM.
Once again, Apple shows that the biggest problem for Apple is Apple itself :-)
If roaming agreements are in place, there is hardly any reason at all for swapping SIMs, and the convenience of being reachable at a single number at all times vastly outweighs the benefits.
sure you can use a paper clip. Try that on an aircraft. And maybe loose that micro sim on that same aircraft with your main account/phone number/$200 debt with the phone company.
On the plus side you can get a cheap Chinese dual Sim to use as your travel phone. You'll have walk around with 2 phones. I recently managed to walk around with 4 phones while hopping from country to country in Europe. The screens are scratch resistant so nothing happens when two are together in the same pocket.
The European Commission proposed one limited to 90 days, after having promised that roaming fees would be done away with entirely in 2017.
They've retracted it after being reminded loudly that they were back-tracking on their promise.
So we're currently waiting for a law proposal from the Commission, which can then be signed into law by the democratically elected EU Parliament.
Why would you need to carry two phones if you've got a cheap dual-SIM Chinese phone? Surely the point of a dual-SIM phone is not needing a second phone? And if you're carrying two phones, neither needs to be dual-SIM?