Apple Inc. on Wednesday launched their newest iPhone models; the iPhone XS, XS Max, and XR. While they all looked astonishing, awesome, and pricey (as some of us reviewers expected), what had many talking, and up to now some have no idea what it is, was the company’s adaption of eSim (Embedded SIM) technology.
After leaks claimed that that the Cupertino-based tech firm had a dual sim variant(s) lined up, they confirmed their new iPhone models do come with Dual-SIM functionality. However, the tricky part is that only in China where users will be able to use two physical/regular sims while in other markets will use one physical SIM and one eSIM.
So what is this eSIM “thing”? What we know is that it’s not 2018 technology since we’ve heard it back in Barcelona at the 2017 Mobile World Congress, seen it in the Samsung Gear S2 3G in 2016, and in the Apple Watch 3 that really brought eSIM technology into the spotlight. With eSIM, there are no physical SIM cards involved and no physical swapping over required by you. eSIM is basically a small chip inside your phone and works in a similar way to the NFC chip.
But first things first, eSIM needs to be supported and enabled by the your network/carrier. A few of the networks/carriers that support eSIM are; Airtel, Vodafone, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless, AT&T, Reliance Jio.
The fun part of this technology is that the information on an eSIM is rewritable. You can decide to change operator(s) at any one point in time. For instance; if you have a physical MTN SIM, and your handset supports eSIM, and you want to allocate it to Airtel, you simply call/go to any of their service center and have it activated, if you want to change to a different operator, you call Airtel first to deactivate the eSIM so that you can be in position to have another operator activate it. One other honorable mention is that they’re really easy to add to a data plan – connecting devices with eSIMs to a mobile account can be done in minutes.
What are the advantage were looking at with the eSIM
Great for regular travelers
You could go to another country and simply add a roaming eSIM to your handset in that particular area/city/country you’re currently in while retaining access to your home number.
Design point of view
With the design point of view, smartphone manufacturers will make a smaller device because there’s no need to accommodate a SIM card or the tray that holds it as its space can be used for something else.
According to Vodafone, eSIMs will enable more connected devices simply because eSIMs don’t require so much room inside a device, enabling fitness trackers or even glasses to have stand-alone 4G connectivity in a way they just weren’t able to before, Pocket-lint reports.
