[seamus]

Originally Posted by DjFlin

How do you think Industry standards are created?

A bunch of companies says "Hey everybody, use my thing". One company wins.

Just look at BluRay Vs HDDVD.

Usually a consortium of companies agrees on a standard and runs with it, because 20 individual companies pushing their own standards makes a bit of a mess of the market. This is why you get format wars only involving two or three formats.

In this case though, the SIM format is agreed by practically every major telecommunications operator in the world, so there aren't really any competing standards. That is, Apple don't have one SIM format and Samsung another. They sit down and agree on a single format, and that's the only one that appears on the market.

In this way, the SIM format follows a universally agreed and natural progression, rather than survival of the fittest, because this is the most cost-effective method.

Apple can really only be accused of forcing the standards to be agreed and implemented faster rather than forcing their own "standards" on everyone else.

[Mr.S]

Originally Posted by smash

Man I never remember a credit card sized sim. Even back when my dad had a carphone and an old 088 number...

Some phones did! I still have my mums Motoralla brick of a phone from 1995 and it uses a credit card sized sim (the actual sim card is the same as a standard sim card but the whole thing is a credit card!)

Like this!

[_ricochet_]

For the USB charger adapter thingy apple will have a 6 month exclusivity on selling the adapter, expect it to be costly!

[ozmo]

Originally Posted by _ricochet_

For the USB charger adapter thingy apple will have a 6 month exclusivity on selling the adapter, expect it to be costly!

The current iPhone/iPad to micro USB costs 9euros
http://store.apple.com/ie/product/MD099ZM/A

Kinda expensive for what it is but not total ripoff unless you charge your phone at lots of places and need buy several.

[Mellor]

Originally Posted by Kenno90

Existing sim cards are very big and apple are trying to get them as small as possible for really thin phones.

I don't see it as a big problem, carriers can easily port your number over to a sim card that matches your phone.

+1 to all of this.
Commen sense really.

Originally Posted by drunkmonkey

You need a standard sim for the iphone 3G/3GS
You need a micro sim for the iphone 4/4S
Now you need a Nano sim for the iphone 5

To me that's daft. It's something that should be agreed with all the mobile phone companies much like the standard charger, apple didn't subscribe to that though. There really out on their own in a bad way.

The new sim will be the agreed upon one

Originally Posted by drunkmonkey

This is a Global product with an industry standard. Apple can't just walk along and force everyone to follow with "their" new standard. How arrogant can you get, it has to bite you at some stage. There too far ahead of the curve on this one.

lol
The decision to move to a new sim is something that all manufacturers agree upon. Nokia were/are developing one, and samsung are also moving forward and will prob adopt the apple one.

This is really basic stuff and happens all the time.
Betamax/VHS
Laser Disc/DVD
HD-DVD/Bluray

Even everyday givens such as USB, HDMI, WiFi, Bluetooth all went through a similar process.
You are making an issue here over nothing simply because its Apple.

[Duggys Housemate]

Originally Posted by drunkmonkey

Your in the richest 1% of the worlds population if you can afford and iphone, you even pay more for everything online, http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-18595347

That stat is probably horsehit given they are 7% of the total phone market.

Edit: and the link doesn't show anything about iPhones nor that Mac users pay more for the same stuff online but that they are directed to the more expensive stuff.

An appalling ill informed number of posts for one thread.

[Duggys Housemate]

Anyway nothing to see here except ill informed Apple bashing. They are using an industry standard sim.

[hardCopy]

Originally Posted by Mr.S

Some phones did! I still have my mums Motoralla brick of a phone from 1995 and it uses a credit card sized sim (the actual sim card is the same as a standard sim card but the whole thing is a credit card!)

Like this!

You still get the full sized card with every Sim pack, you have to break of the mini or micro Sim to put it in your phone.

[cisk]

Originally Posted by seamus

The aim of course is to move to an embedded SIM so that you don't have to change the SIM card at all, you just register the device's IMEI with your carrier, and it instantly becomes active on their network.

Exactly, Apple want to get rid of the SIM completely and emulate it all on the phone. They already pushed for this but got fierce resistance off the mobile networks.

So Apple are going to use their pushing power to make it smaller and smaller until the obvious choice is to move to embedded.

[seamus]

My understanding is that an embedded SIM will require substantial changes to the way the network software works at the moment, because every carrier issues their own specific SIM and you can't register one carrier's SIM on another's network. Some Irish carriers even require you to change SIM if you're moving from PAYG to bill pay!

Embedded SIMs would turn this all on their head and it will need to be possible to use any "eSIM" on any network in the world, as well as transfer them between networks as required.

It would require a DNS-style hierarchy that all providers interconnect with, I think.

[ozmo]

Originally Posted by Mellor

+1 to all of this.
Commen sense really.

Its just a pain though.. I have a few phones - just one good one. i like to bring an old phone when i go abroad... I normally use iphone but like to mess with androids the odd time... Spot of development and website testing also.
The adapter (bit of plastic to make the sim bigger) makes this easy.

If i was to get the new phone - Incompatible sims will mean im stuck to that one phone without a visit to the o2 shop each time i want change...

Hopefully there is a nano sim adapter that works...

[Mellor]

Originally Posted by ozmo

Its just a pain though.. I have a few phones - just one good one. i like to bring an old phone when i go abroad... I normally use iphone but like to mess with androids the odd time... Spot of development and website testing also.
The adapter (bit of plastic to make the sim bigger) makes this easy.

If i was to get the new phone - Incompatible sims will mean im stuck to that one phone without a visit to the o2 shop each time i want change...

Hopefully there is a nano sim adapter that works...

There will be an adapter imo, I believe one was already link to earlier

[naasrd]

Not an issue for me. Look how the iPhone has changed in 5 years, the sim must change as technology does.

[culabula]

Originally Posted by hardCopy

You still get the full sized card with every Sim pack, you have to break of the mini or micro Sim to put it in your phone.

Not any more. Certain microSIMs are now delivered with the smallest of housing around them.

[Piliger]

Originally Posted by drunkmonkey

I think it's Apple trying to re-invent a wheel that's not broken. There trying to lock people into their hardware and make it as painful as possible to switch from phone to phone. Bad move, will turn me off even considering an iphone 5.

What do you think?

You don't seem to grasp two things.

Firstly Apple are battling to use every free square millimetre of space inside the phone.

Secondly only a tiny amount of the space on the SIM is actually used and a large amount of unnecessary space is taken up by useless plastic and the mount for it.

So they are doing what any great company does, drive forward with new ideas and push the industry to higher and higher standards, while their competitors laze around.