https://gizmodo.com/google-s-pixel-8-sim-slot-esim-only-iphone-1850759671
What happened to daring to be different? What happened to having options? What happened to creativity?
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After years of eSim, wanting eSim, asking for nothing but eSim, I’m done with eSim. Having an argument with a T-Mobile rep in store on whether or not my Pixel 7 has an eSim made me no longer want eSim. I want my phone and its service to be as self service as possible, and managing my own sim seems to be my best option.
I mean, technically an eSim at its simplest is just a QR code provided to you by your provider, just like they provide you a SIM card. None of their fucking business whether your device supports it.
The Pixel does support eSim and QR code setup.
T-Mobile will only support QR code setup for Samsungs and iPhones, though. You have to call in if you have a Pixel.
The QR codes aren’t tied to any brand. Next time just tell them it’s a Samsung phone.
They are for T-Mobile. I tried using it on my Pixel; it didn’t work.
Okay, that sounds like a Tmobile problem, not an eSIM problem.
And what makes it more frustrating with T-Mobile is they don’t allow their customers to go online and swap a phone themselves. You HAVE to go in or call. My brother got a Pixel 7, and we couldn’t swap his 5 out for the 7 online.
I looked everywhere on that shitty website, the closest thing they had was an option “upgrade my phone” that just took you to their online store. Fuck TMobile, I hate them so much.
Why do Android manufacturers keep turning their phones into iPhones? If I wanted an iPhone, I’d buy one.
Prolly cos they sell like hotcakes.
True, but they shouldn’t be the only option. A big part of why they sell the way they do is brand recognition.
At this point I dunno anymore why they sell the way they do. Sure, hardware is really great. But the OS is lagging behind Android, CoreAudio aside. Apps are fine if you work around iOS’s limitations. Still people really like the ecosystem or are they poor brand followers? Dunno.
Vendor lock-in is a big one. Losing access to your purchased games/apps and having a harder time bringing over your music and video libraries could turn people off, even if F2P games and streaming have made these less relevant. There’s also the matter of switching cloud storage providers
Product design and BOM. Less parts. Easier to integrate. Easier IP ratings.
Are you forgetting that the Galaxy S5 had a removable back and still had an IP rating?
The fact that s5 was created does not contradict to the fact that it is easier to get IP rating without slots and holes.
Watches can be waterproof to hundreds of meters deep and they have removable backs. It’s not about the waterproofing, it’s about not letting you change the battery so you have to buy a whole new phone when the battery stays dying. It’s forced obsolescence.
Are you trying to argue that having unreplacable battery simplifies reaching of water resistance? Seriously?
Regarding the watches: these watches do not have many slots you can open without a screwdriver. moreover, officially you are recommended to change the battery in the official service center not yourself, and still you are also recommended to do a periodic service to maintain WR.
Yet they still did it. So regardless if it’s easier or not, they can still do it that way.
Keyword is easier
Are you saying it’s not easier to just not have a hole than it is to seal a hole?
I’m not thrilled about it either, but it’s obvious why they prefer it.
They need microphones and speakers. There’s gonna be holes regardless.
Yeah. But you remove the sim card assembly (BOM), connector/solder pads (system design and internal space) and remove potential ingress points. It’s just easier and cheaper from engineering through to production.
Dude, they have under water cameras , you can swim with fucking whales with a huge ass cameras, I’m not going swimming with my phone. Fick all these ratings, it’s not like they would make it cheaper for you. Give me back changeable batteries, I’m not fucking fish.
They’re chasing IP ratings. I like not losing a phone when I make a dumb, but prefer lightly sealed or unsealed with a replaceable battery. My LG V20 was the bees knees.
You can still change the batteries, it just takes a heat gun now.
Idk, apple replaced their sim card slot with… Plastic. A plastic insert. “Internal Space”
They’re making SIM and non-SIM versions so that let’s them use the same tooling for both versions. It’s still a BOM reduction, but yeah, the other points would be a much smaller impact.
I don’t think it would make that big of a difference.
I’m not entirely sure how much of a difference it would make in reality, but they’re probably doing it for a reason. Though, with google devices, they may just be trying to nudge other manufacturers in a direction for their own reasons. Google phones help them set and maintain certain standards without trying to force other manufacturers to do what they want.
Is there a motive you see for Google to do this that isn’t per-unit cost savings?
Yep. More of the restrictions of Apple but with less of the QA.
Because people go out of their way to buy iPhones. The overwhelming majority of android users are just on the cheapest thing.
To setup an esim you need google framework and play installed (grapheneos is out, except you install Google)
This is the idea behind… More control
I don’t think this is true?
I use calyx which has only microg and I’ve successfully used esims. No play store installed.
It’s somewhere on the GrapheneOS website, Says to install you need google play, you can delete it afterwords. That said calyx has microg
deleted by creator
Nah, I use GrapheneOS. Unfortunately you need to install the play store/services initially to services and “enabled privileged esim access” in the network access to install esim. After that though, you can purge all the Google crap and easily uninstall it all. Esim will remain in your phone, even if you were to factory reset and reflash to another OS. You just have install esim only once and it’s actually stored on the hardware level.
you need google framework and play installed
Nonstarter for me then 👎 frustrating too, why
these companies insist onuse Google’s infra instead of creating or adopting an actual celluar standard?Edit: sentence
Only to initially install it. After you install the esim, you can purge the Google stuff and it’ll remain working perfectly. Esim is actually on your phone at the hardware level.
Do people not remember how fucking annoying this shit was before physical SIM cards? Who in the ever loving fuck is asking for this??
I remember vzw being on 3g and not having Sims. It made changing phones a bit of a hassle. I hated having to either go into a store or call in. Hopefully there’s better ways in the future if this does happen.
Especially the original Droids
No one is asking for it. That won’t stop Google from continuing the enshitification of everything they can.
It was annoying before because there was no sim. You had to register your device with the carrier for it to work. So it always meant a call to your provider to do anything and you couldn’t use the device on more then one network.
E-sim is different. You can have multiple esims on one phone and even move them to other phones.
TIL apple doesn’t have Sim slot.
Only in USA.
How do you place calls ? there still has to be something that identifies your device to the service provider, no ?
This is a new thing for them as well. Electronic sims have been around and ultimately eliminate used space and make the phones more sealed against water. The iPhone 14 I believe was the first one launched without a sim card slot.
E-sim cards are supported by Apple, Samsung, Google (pixel), Huawei, Oppo, Motorola, Sony, and likely many others. The idea of getting rid of the physical port is what these users are upset about.
Correct - all iPhones in the US only utilize eSIM which is basically a digital sim card that your device can download from the carrier, usually prompted with either a QR Code or the carrier’s app can initialize the download after you sign in to their app.
It was previously used for small devices like smart watches, and then I guess Apple decided “this is good enough” and moved iPhones over to use it.
Cheers, ok
Apple has never been about having options. They have always taught that the customer doesn’t know what they want. They enforce whatever they think is best, and provide no ways to change it.
Yep and sadly it’s worked out pretty well for them.
A lot of people don’t want options, they want solutions. I’m not one of them, but I can’t blame them. They just don’t care about the same things I do.
9/10 times I’m one of them. I stopped wanting unnecessary complexity in my tech towards the end of my teenage years. I’m much happier now with solutions that just work 100% of the time with no extra effort. The average person doesn’t want or need to know how their tech works. It just needs to work
Capitalism it desgned for this you see.
Apple is for iToddlers. That’s how they view their customers: as mentally deficient children who must be hand held at all times, lest they run into traffic.
What is being forced here? SIM cards store absolutely no information these days except your phone number?
eSIM has been supported on Pixel and iPhone for years and security wise it is a win: https://darknetdiaries.com/transcript/118/ give that a listen.
Additionally, there is support to swap eSIM to other devices Apple has implemented a method and Google is working to do so. Telecom compnaies in the US are already capable of doing so as well: https://www.androidpolice.com/android-14-dual-sim/
What choice did this actually take from you? You either want a phone number or you don’t? You either want that number on a device or you don’t? The choice still exist here. This post has solidified to me that Lemmy users literally know absolutely nothing about security and let bias interfere with educating themselves on this kind of thing.
Pretty sure its a nothing burger.
Considering majority of the planet doesn’t have access to esim. Google just cut off a huge chunk of its markets. I’ve been waiting on esims for years. They are slowly creeping out but they don’t work on all networks and don’t work on pay as you go plans.
Think you’d need esim to be much more established before you tried anything like this.
BT headphones had become pretty normal by the time they started removing the jack. You can also get an adapter to still use them. No slot for sim would be incredibly bold and lose them a tonne of money.
Nae chance in hell.
Info is from a leak. C’mon
Google shouldn’t remove physical SIM cards until the networks can figure them out. I don’t understand why it’s so hard for them to do so, though.
Setting my Pixel up with an eSim on T-Mobile was a huge pain in the ass even though it should have been stupid easy. T-Mobile has a QR code you can scan to automate the setup, but, by their choice, it only works on Samsungs and iPhones.
First step was that I had to call up their tech support and confirm my identity. No issues with the identity confirmation, that’s the bare minimum they should require. But then I had to manually relay my IMEI, avoiding making any mistakes.
When they finished, the call disconnected and my service no longer worked. Why? Because they need to deactivate your current IMEI to get it to work. And eSim won’t work with T-Mobile until you take out your old SIM and restart your phone.
Before losing service, they told me this part would be tricky. If they had made a single mistake, I would have lost service. The online reps couldn’t fix this, only the phone reps could, but again, I would have no service so I couldn’t call the phone reps. If it didn’t work, I would need to go in store to get it fixed and hope they would call in for me.
I don’t understand why the process is any harder than just logging into your carrier on your phone.
In the Netherlands I went from not being a customer to making a phone call at the carrier in 10 minutes, while being in a third country. It really isn’t hard. And I have a Fairphone, so not even a mainstream brand.
Yeah I used an esim on spark. It took 2 seconds. I bought it used code and had a new sim in like 5 mins.
No idea what the hell you went through. Obviously different systems
Just one correction, I’ve found plenty of companies offering pay as you go eSims in Switzerland, so I’d imagine it can exist elsewhere too. Digital Republic is an example that I use. Not gonna lie, it’s nice to have a fully functioning phone plan right as you land on the tarmac.
Oh excellent I stand corrected. All the sim plans I’ve seen in the UK France and North America all seemed to offer monthly plans but not pay as you go.
I know there are lots of online only holiday sims. They are fantastic. Was going to use them in Canada but didn’t get a chance.
Hopefully more will push into competition
You can get a vodafone PAYG esim, they just don’t tell you about it. Get the PAYG SIM, register for an online account, wait a day or two for their ancient backend systems to all update, change to an esim from the account page.
Used it on my pixel 7 at Glastonbury this year
Noice. So there are likely more esims available they just are hidden
I think you can get a Lycamobile one too, but that’s all I could find when I was looking a couple of months ago
Idk, I think they’re totally willing to manufacture a separate US model and an international model. And as time goes on, they’ll phase out the international model. Just much more slowly.
Could be. But not until esims are ubicuos. Or else what’s the point.
And there are also those with dual SIMs for work or other purposes. With eSim one can have a personal account and use the physical SIM for work without the need for dual SIM slots. Removing the physical SIM means this is no longer possible.
How is that not possible with dual esims?
Google Pixel leaks are very notorious. Assuming this is true, it still doesn’t make the “rumor” a good thing.
We already have US versions and international versions of phones. The international version will probably still have regular sim.
Maybe I’m out of the loop but are eSIMs insecure or something? What’s the problem? I started using eSIMs while traveling overseas and it been a game changer. So easy… No more swapping. No more trying to find a Sim provider at the airport etc.
AFAIK esim is not available everywhere and it’s also less private since you need to register an account to activate rather than pay cash and pop in the card.
Yes eSIM adoption is low, but half the world requires you to register either way. The main concern is the friction (sometimes inability) with swapping eSIM’s between phones. They are great and convenient but they should never be the only option.
In the eu you have to register your regular sim card with your full personal information. So for us nothing would change.
South Africa too. We call it RICA
Iirc the US also started requiring it, too.
What I like about physical Sims is I can easily swap it between different devices without need to login into a website or app to transfer it over.
Is esim that convient when it comes to swapping the same sim between different devices?
Stringer Bell over here with your SIM card shenanigans.
i’d say it’s a toss up really: personally i’d prefer logging into an account rather than having to find/carry something to pop open the sim tray, but i can see why some people would prefer that option
If you’re someone who needs to swap SIM cards just keep the tool between the phone’s backside and its case. If you don’t have a case on your phone then… The fuck you doing playing with fire like that bruh?
No need to waste money on a phone case if you smash your phone or throw it in a river every time you make a call. You don’t want the feds to catch up with you, right?
Seeing some of the crowd around here I wouldn’t be surprised if and of them only use burner phones…
I keep it on my keys. You need those to get into your house/apartment/vehicle anyways.
that’s very fair!
i don’t actually have keys - everything is phone or watch, but i’m definitely an outlier!
Understandable.
They are a privacy problem.
What are those privacy problems?
I guess there’s the fact that you cannot anonymously purchase an eSIM.
Anything else?
That’s a big one. It introduces a privacy concern that traditional SIMs dont have, and if all phones use eSIM, there will be no alternative.
As with many things tech, it’s a slippery slope, and short-term convenience leads to long-term detriment. But if you don’t care about privacy, then yes, enjoy the convenience of an eSIM.
doesn’t most the world require registering for a regular sim anyway?
Yeah, I don’t understand where people are getting a SIM card nowadays without an ID or verification.
is there much privacy in attaching your main phone to a new sim?
Agreed, except that it can still be more difficult to get an eSIM than a physical SIM in some parts of the world. It depends on where you are traveling.
That probably won’t be an issue in the next couple of years.
why the hell do you need a plastic chip? its useless and redundant. get a username and password from the phone carrier and that’s it. just like connecting to an ISP for example. why are people clinging to old technology for no reason.
Besides, phone carrier nowadays are exactly this: ISPs. they provide an IP and a bandwidth.
Most carriers don’t support eSim. Mostly just the more expensive ones do.
I’m on an inexpensive MVNO that supports eSim.
There are several companies that provide travel esims. I use knowroaming. Much more convenient than trying to find a shop that sells sim cards after you arrive.
maybe if people stop clinging to old techonology and use it the companies will be forced to advance as well. maybe stop using fax machines and they will stop producing them!
Someone should come in here and explain further, but I believe this becomes a big deal when traveling.
eSIMs are much more comfortable for travel, since you can purchase one online and activate it while still in your home country a few days before your flight, for example.
There, you just got a shitload of options, had the time to comfortably compare plans from your home PC while on home WiFi, and make sure you picked the best one.
Now compare this to: arriving, getting past customs, picking up your luggage from the belt, picking up your rental and oh no fuck I have to buy a SIM from the first scammy desk I can find at the airport or around town.
Thanks, but no thanks.
I am not going to argue either way on this. I am simply repeating the travel issue that I recall reading about when eSims first hit the scene. My understanding is that your example is just not super accurate for countries that you might not have been before - in other words, how do you know it will work or the network will be any good from 1/2 a world away. Especially in 3rd world countries where support and coverage might be iffy at best. Along with that is some of these networks from 3rd world countries might simply not support eSims at all.
Those are just some of the points that I recall.
Because I’m much more likely to lose/forget a username and password and going through the hassle of getting a hold of the carrier, proving who I am, and recovering said info is a bitch. I’d prefer to not go through that over and over. I buy my phone out right with no part of the carrier. They have no need to be a part of me switching phones.
Also a decent chunk of carriers outside of America only support physical sim cards so in alot of countries this phone would be useless.
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There are password managers for that
Then click “forgot password”
ISPs also provides hardware.
very short sited comment
esims are neat tho
They may be neat, but I don’t think that should be the only means of getting your phone connected to your carrier/telco.
(all carriers support and promote esim where i live)
what advantages do physical, external sims offer over built-in esim modules?Physical Sims are easier to move around. So someone like a tech reviewer (as an extreme example) can flip their sim into any device for review and switch back without having to do anything further. With esim, generally the qr code initiates the process but doesn’t actually represent the sim itself, so the sims are non-transferable. You usually need a new esim qr code and you have to interact with your carrier to move to the new eSIM; usually through an online sim transfer process.
Transplant that for people who travel and may have half a dozen sims for various destination locations which can be swapped out for any reason at any time. Hopping between carriers as they go. Landed in France? Cool, just pull out your collection of sims and pull your France Telecom company sim card, and pop it in. No internet/wifi/data/phone call needed.
For me, I use my esim as dual SIM, my esim is my personal SIM card. For work, I’m usually given a mobile number at least, so I take the sim that work provides and drop it in the physical SIM slot and I’m off to the races. If I’m fired or quit, I just pop it out and hand it back to them. With eSIM, they only have my word that is been removed, and they need to transfer it to a new eSIM QR code. It’s just more hassle. With a physical SIM they just pop it into a new device for my replacement, or hand it to that person if they’re bringing their own device to the table… It’s just a lot less hassle.
90% of people don’t travel enough that the former is a problem, or change jobs enough that the latter is a problem. Most people put the sim into their phone and ignore it exists (as long as it keeps working). So for the vast majority eSIM is barely an inconvenience, and most of the work in transferring the eSIM will be done by the carrier employees when setting you up on a new device as part of an upgrade, so the vast majority of customers won’t care or notice.
The main technical argument for eSIM is that it takes up substantially less internal space which can go towards making devices smaller, and lighter, or provide slightly larger batteries or storage or something.
I prefer having a sim as an option, but for the most part, I’m not going to be too bothered if they don’t put it in.
you can usually store multiple esims on your phone tho and quickly swap between them… (with only one active at a time)
I have both my eSIM and physical SIM active at the same time; I need it this way, since it’s my personal line and my work provided line, both of which need to be able to receive a call, more or less 24/7. I’m an IT tech, and if you’re not familiar with the job, we end up on-call, 24/7. Usually there’s a rotation to the on-call (one person is on call one week, another the next, etc etc). So I need access to my work SIM all the time. With dual-SIM (one physical, one eSIM), I can make and take phone calls on either, 24/7. I won’t sacrifice either personal communication nor work communication for the other; and presently, I don’t.
The caveat is that I can only have one of them active for data at a time; so I have to pick which one. To avoid putting a lot of personal data on my work SIM, or a lot of work data on my personal SIM, I limit my work-related data and keep my personal SIM active for data 90% of the time or more. Whenever work demands require that I use mobile data for something that’s data intensive, I switch to my work SIM for the duration of that task (like tethering, or a video call or something). That’s how I’ve structured it. I’d like for it to be able to have both connected and direct traffic around based on app, but no such structure exists either with iPhones, nor Android, so I cannot do that for the moment (which I believe would require another cellular modem - which would increase costs for the phone, and most people wouldn’t need that).
I haven’t used dual-eSIM, though I know it’s possible to have multiple of them, and I don’t know what the behaviour is with dual-eSIM in this regard… Since it’s a fairly niche use-case, I don’t expect to have an answer without experimenting.
Walking to a supermarket in some random country you are traveling to and getting a sim worth 10$ to go.
My favorite phone I’ve ever had was an LG. I had two easily switchable batteries for it and an external charger. It had an SD card slot and a headphone jack. It did everything I needed it to do, and it had very little bloatware. Hell, it’s over decade old or something, and it still works just fine. In fact, last time I used it, the battery lasted longer than ever since it doesn’t have a SIM card anymore, I rooted it and removed every unnecessary app, and it spends all its time in flight mode occasionally playing MP3s. I’ve no doubt if I fired it up tomorrow, it’d still work, though Google would certainly complain that it hasn’t been updated 8 bajillion times in the interim. Every phone I’ve had since then (Google Nexus 6P, Samsung Galaxy Note 9, and now an S23 Ultra) has had a better camera, a little bigger screen resolution, and was worse in just about every other way.
I’m still on an old ass LG because there is nothing that isnt a massive downgrade in functionality.
Because fuck what people want amiright?
Corporates: Because shits still sold amiright?
We only have ourselves to blame.
Microtransactions, subscriptions, non-removeable battery, no headphone jack, no sim slots, $2000 phones, $2000 GPUs,… It’s all us. We keep buying their shits no matter how much they screwed us.
And who gave people what they wants?
Fairphone: sustainable phone. -> No one buying.
Iphone: Sold out.
AMD GPUs: somewhat the lesser evil. -> No one buying.
Nvidia: Reach over a Trillion in value.
Framework laptop: fully repairable, upgradeable. -> No one buying.
MacBook: Sold out.
I said “No one buying” is just exaggerated, but you know what I mean.
It needs to be on regulators. Consumers aren’t good at being informed or wearing hair shirt for long term goals. Little guys struggle competing with giants due to economy of scales.
Yeah, but then, who voted for those Corporate-minion dinosaurs?
Again, us.
The average age of US senator is 65, even higher than the retirement age. Those dinosaurs probably think anything gaming related is a “Pokemon” made by “Nintendo”.
Old democracies are becoming the norm in the developed world I’m afraid. When it’s our generation that are the old voters, we may be no better.
Fairphone not available within my reach
AMD GPU yes, RX 6700XT
Framework laptop not available within my reach instead bought toshiba’s
I mean the Fairphone isn’t even available in the States.
What the shit? Really? That’s dumb.
Eh. EM bands, regulations, supply chains, and marketing are complicated, is my read on it. Doubly so when you want to do everything sustainably and ethically, and then market that in a famously hyper-consumeristic country.
I wish they did sell it directly in North America. But I don’t blame them for focusing on the EU where they’re at home.
I’m still on a LG v20. Can’t blame me for this.
My PC is i7-3770 from 2012, my laptop is $100 from craigslist, my phone is 5 years old Xiaomi, my handheld is Nintendo DSlite. Can’t blame me either. :)
Ps:LG V20 is so neat, I still remember drooling over it when it’s released, I was still a student back then so I can’t afford it 😔
Yea IMO the V20 was the peak as far as phones go. Everything after that I looked at was stripping things out. It was expensive but I definitely got my money’s worth out of it.
I mean of all the stupid shit to remove from a phone, why is the sim card THE big deal? I mean who the fuck cares? a SIM card is infrastructure dependent inherently, it is just a token for a network! What is the problem of storing the token for a network digitally. The SD slot and the headphone jack, Yeah those are useful. But the SIM slot? I don’t get it.
if your phone dies you can easily love the sim card to the new one and move on with life.
edit: I’m keeping the typo
Move. And, yes.
Make love and have baby Sim cards
that’s how nano Sim cards are made
There still are operators that don’t support esim, like the one I’m on.
There won’t be for long once the iPhone drops support
the iPhone already did… in the United States,
Then there won’t be carriers that don’t support it for long in the United States!
This started when we lost swappable batteries and it never stopped. Will never get over it either.
eSim is a good thing.
Sure, but current pixels support esim and regular sims. As someone who hops around phones often sim cards are unbeatable
Idk what you’re experience with esim and switching phones is but Google Fi does it pretty much instantly for me. I’ve switched back and forth between my s21 and pixel 7 multiple times and never had an issue.
I disagree, but that’s my opinion.
Why? It’s like wanting a floppy drive when buying a new PC nowadays.
I’m exaggerating a bit, but physical SIMs will be redundant soon enough, no idea why you need a slot so bad?
You’re exaggerating a lot. Floppy disks were barely in use 25 years ago.
I feel like a broken record at this point. So allow me to quote… myself
Not every phone I have supports esim. If my phone breaks for some reason, or something software wise happens to it and I don’t have the time to deal with it at the moment. I can pop out my sim card and put it into another phone to get it working so I have something at the moment rather than nothing. The example I’ve provided has actually happened to me before and I’d be screwed if I had an eSIM instead.
So what should it be then? Full size, mini, micro, nano?
This is not a new problem, if we keep relying on outdated technology, we’ll get nowhere.
It’s not outdated if it still works.
Soon phones are required to have replaceable batteries! At least in the EU
I had heard about that! Kinda nuts that America seems to just be universally doing the wrong thing about everything. We can’t have nice things here, ever bc the worst people just want things to be worse.
Nah, the average consumer is kind of over it.
I remember being very happy that pixels went from 3 year support to 5. But then they got rid of the headphone jack, so I never bought it. Seems to have been the right choice.
I really miss it sometimes on my pixel 5. But having a physical sim and an e-sim active is really nice.
