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.
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.
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
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.
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.
Apple has never been about having options. They have always believed that the customer doesn't know what they want. They enforce whatever they think is best, and provide no ways to change it.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Someone should come in here and explain further, but I believe this becomes a big deal when traveling.
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.
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.
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.
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
There still are operators that don't support esim, like the one I'm on.
This started when we lost swappable batteries and it never stopped. Will never get over it either.
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.
Well, I guess that rules out the Pixel 8 as my next phone. My telecom, as with most in my country, only issues eSIMs to phones that they officially support - in other words, Samsung Galaxy phones and iPhones only.
Since physical sims are well physical items. They create ewaste. Whereas esim which is not a physical item, doesn't.
Just embrace better technology
If you buy this pixel from Verizon, and use it as trade in for, say, samsung phone via their website, how are you supposed to get Sim service switched? You don't have Verizons phone (because you sent it to them), and your new phone doesn't have service (because they sell you a blank unlocked phone), nor is it connected to Verizons towers. You're going to be....expected to go to verizon? Use someone else's phone?
Like using someone else's car at the dmv for driving tests, it's horribly reliant on external factors and is fuckin' duuuuumb
As someone who switches between my iPhone and Pixel regularly for fun, this would kinda be a dealbreaker