I'm surprised Apple has created a proper Fi competitor yet. It would fit so well into their premium brand of "your iPhone works the moment you step off the plane wherever your amazing life takes you".<p>They wouldn't have their UX tied to cell providers, who are some of the most unpleasant entities to interact with. They would probably be able to lean further into their personal security stance, by fully obfuscating the user from the provider.<p>They have the brand leverage to do it, I'm hoping this is a stepping stone.
This isn't new, the Apple SIM has been around since 2014:<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_SIM" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_SIM</a>
I've always wished that apple would offer this in the macbook pros. A laptop that doesn't have to tether, but just carries its own internet connection with it would be really nice.
This isn’t new and it’s fairly expensive compared to Google Fi or T-Mobile. Might be worth it for customers in some countries but US users have much better choices for roaming internationally.
too bad this doesn't work in iPhones.<p>I have 15+ international SIM cards. Slightly inconvenient to have to buy one for each country I visit to avoid surprise roaming charges.
For some reason I instantly noticed the map is showing a park in Lyon. Does that have any significance?<p>(Of course, they should have used openstreetmap <a href="https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=16/45.7790/4.8529" rel="nofollow">https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=16/45.7790/4.8529</a>)
Unfortunately, when I go on road trips (mostly western US), there are a <i>LOT</i> of areas that only Verizon seems to have coverage. I've used most of the other carriers at one time or another, but I've been with Verizon for about 2 years now as I just got tired of not having connectivity when traveling inside the country.
How is this better than simply having... A SIM-card in your phone or tablet?<p>A SIM-card is something you can swap and replace in less than 30 seconds, and 100% decouples your device from your cellular provider. The way things should be. It's hardware so it's portable. It's standardized so it's interoperable and works with all equipment, from all vendors.<p>Why does Apple need to re-invent this?<p>Why would I want to replace something 1. which works, 2. is industry standard and 3. has proven itself for more than two decades... With something which is 1. not industry-standard but Apple-only and 2. not proven?<p>What on earth would compel anyone to make such a stupid trade-off? How stupid would you have to be to think this is a good thing?
Nice to see SoftBank on that page, probably means SoC makers can simply get the IP from them when getting other parts like an ARM core etc. Makes it a whole lot easier to just get a virtual SIM in your device.