The sim card about to die

If there's one thing I've learned about Apple's dealings
with SIM cards in the past seven years, it's that Apple
gets what Apple wants.
The little gold-plated circuits — which identify you as a
subscriber on a particular carrier — plug into phones,
tablets, and basically anything else with a cellular radio.
Customers of GSM carriers like AT&T and T-Mobile have
been using them since time immemorial; CDMA carriers
like Sprint and Verizon have started using them since
switching to LTE. Apple hates SIMs, and has hated them
for as long as the iPhone has existed: it is known to
have explored the use of embedded, non-removable
SIMs in the past.
Finally, with the iPad Air 2 and mini 3, Apple has
decided to start making its move by using a
reprogrammable SIM that can be taken from carrier to
carrier, switching networks and pricing plans through
user-friendly software alone. It's called "Apple SIM." Not
every carrier is on board yet — Apple SIM is still
removable, and carrier-bought iPads will use regular,
locked SIMs — but the writing is on the wall. The
wounds are mortal. Within a year or two, you'll probably
never see a SIM card in an Apple product again. You
may not even see a tray.
WITHIN A YEAR OR TWO, YOU'LL PROBABLY NEVER SEE
A SIM CARD IN AN APPLE PRODUCT AGAIN
Every time Apple has tweaked the SIM formula, it has
won. Just look at the original iPhone in 2007: the notion
of a handset with a SIM card that could only be
accessed by triggering a fidgety little tray using a paper
clip was insane. Yet today, many flagship smartphones
are using them (the main holdouts are phones with
replaceable batteries — another notion that Apple
practically shut down). "SIM tools," little pieces of easy-
to-lose steel that will prick you if you're not careful, just
seem like a totally normal thing to find in the box of a
new phone now.
Next there was 3FF — better known as micro-SIM —
which debuted on the original iPad in 2010. At the time,
it wasn't fun: Apple broke compatibility with an
enormous ecosystem of GSM devices, which made
sharing an account with your iPad a huge pain. Slowly,
carriers started offering micro-SIMs, but you still needed
a flimsy, hard-to-find adapter to use those cards
anywhere else. (It took a full product cycle, more than a
year, for other manufacturers to skate to Apple's puck.)
Apple never looked back, switching to micro-SIM with
the iPhone 4 later that same year.
APPLE ISN'T AFRAID TO BREAK COMPATIBILITY
It happened all over again with 4FF, the nano-SIM
standard that today's iPads and iPhones use. Apple first
fought and won against a consortium of other phone
manufacturers who were proposing a different (and more
advanced) nano-SIM, then it introduced the new card to
the market mere weeks later with the iPhone 5. Once
more, carriers and competing phone makers had to catch
up — even this year's Samsung Galaxy S5 is still on the
older micro-SIM.
Apple's unique place in the market gives it extraordinary
power over carriers, which are notorious for being
difficult to work with and, often, stuck in their ways.
And with the Apple SIM, only a small number of carriers
are on board so far: AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, and UK's EE
(Verizon, perhaps the most stubborn of them all, is
missing). But, as with the introduction of the micro-SIM
on the original iPad, this is a tell by Apple. It's a
warning that the next iPhone will be using
reprogrammable SIMs — and if a carrier would like to
offer that iPhone, it had better start getting ready. It's
easy to imagine that Apple could just eliminate the tray
altogether, leaving uncooperative carriers on the
sideline.
It's easy to bemoan the death of the removable SIM; for
GSM customers, it's a symbol of freedom, a way to move
between phones at will. But in reality, Apple's rapid
progression from mini- to micro- to nano-SIM has
already left us with a fragmented market, and tossing a
SIM between Android and iOS phones can lead to
provisioning issues that leave you stuck on the phone
with customer service anyway. If Apple forces this issue
— which, by all appearances, it's going to — it'll light a
fire beneath carriers and competing phone makers that
makes switching carriers easier than ever. (Switching
devices , not so much.)
Via : The Verge