RIM-Moto sketch THIRD nanoSIM design as peace offering RIM and Motorola reportedly hope to break the deadlock over the design of future SIM cards by offering a blueprint that'll either appease every party or alienate all sides equally. At issue is the shape and size of the standard next-generation SIM: Apple and a band of network operators want a tray-requiring shape and contacts …
But I suspect Apple's objection to a tray less design is because either the sim is going to be visible from the outside, like a SD card in a MacBook or necessitate some sort of swing out surface panel for it to hide behind, or heaven forbid, require a design with a removable back.
Basically I think the tray design is a lesser compromise of their design ethic.
With increasing integration of SoC and reducing number of chips, lack ot keypad and big screen I think it's more about making it awkward for users to swap SIMs.
I find it hard to believe than that even the current small Apple SIM is needed. My older phone uses regular SIM yet has more chips, a keypad and longer battery life than an iPhone.
Apple in reality want phones to be like the consumer unfriendly CDMA-1 phones with no SIM.
Can't this be done with software? I remember rumors from a couple years ago that Apple was working on eliminating the SIM and doing it in software, but that talk died down soon after. Either it was false, or Apple was shot down hard by the carriers who presumably fear the ease with which someone could have a phone with a half dozen SIMs that automatically picked the best rate for each call or data connection depending on where one was located at the moment.
A software SIM doesn't eliminate the ability to move your account between phones, there are some obvious ways this could be done. The fact you can't do this in CDMA is most likely a deliberate oversight. Carriers have no incentive to make switch phones and/or providers more easy, and some obvious incentives to make it difficult or impossible.
Apple (nor any other phone manufacturer) has zero incentive to make it harder for people to swap SIMs, its the carriers who have reason to make it more difficult. The inability to unlock the AT&T iPhone until recently was likely something contractual Apple had to agree to in order to get AT&T to agree to other terms Apple wanted.
So what? The whole lot put together is tiny when compared to the size of the screen, which is what governs the case size.
There comes a point at which the thing's either too thin to be robust enough in general use or too small to be usable, unless you have miniscule fingers and cyborg eyes with a magnifying function. I think we're already there.
If you keep the existing pad layout, you can only trim a few millimetres off one edge (with the orientation wedge).
I think you want something like a pin or nail with contacts (and securing notch) like a jack plug. Assuming you don't want to store your contacts on the SIM / PIM.
Apple want to ensure their products are incompatible and difficult to access so they can lock users in to their products.
A micro-SIM + a tray must take up the same space as a 2FF standard SIM, so SIZE was not relevant to Apple with the iPhone 4
The 2FF form factor is quite small enough. - What about BATTERY size? - they need to work on that.
Easily removable click/stop SIM cards - GOOD idea.
Easily exchangeable memory cards - GOOD idea.
Easily exchangeable battery - GOOD idea.
Micro-SIM, Non-removable battery & non-exchangeable memory cards (a la iPhone 4) - BAD ideas.
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