Has the Apple iPhone Air Killed Off the Sim Card?

upstart writes:

Has the Apple iPhone Air killed off the Sim card?:

With smartphones, where Apple leads others often follow - so it launching an iPhone this week without a traditional Sim card is raising questions over the future of a very familiar piece of phone tech.

All phone users will be used to the small plastic cards they need to delicately insert into their devices to make them operate.

But for buyers of the iPhone Air, that will be a thing of the past.

It will only operate with an eSim - which allows users to switch networks or plans without resorting to a fiddly fork to open a tiny Sim card tray.

Analyst Kester Mann, from CCS Insight, told BBC News that Apple's announcement "marks the beginning of the end of the physical Sim card".

But how long will it be before we have all discarded our little chip-carrying pieces of plastic - and what difference will it make to how we use our phones?

Sim stands for Subscriber Identity Module. The chip is a key part of your phone - allowing you to connect to your mobile network provider, handle calls and texts, and use your data.

In recent years, the eSim has emerged as an alternative and in newer phones users have the option to use both a traditional Sim or the eSim.

On Tuesday, in its product announcement for the new iPhone Air - the newest, and thinnest, addition to the Apple family - the tech giant said it would feature an eSim-only design.

[...] Other major manufacturers, such as Samsung, external and Google, while embracing eSims as an option are also still maintaining physical Sim in most places.

However, experts say there is no doubt about the direction of travel.

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