
Why You Can’t Use Your Phone’s SIM in the iPad - pixelcort
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/01/ipad-mini-sim/
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ugh
When the SIM card size we have now was introduced everyone had to cut them
down (SIM cards were as big as your normal credit card back then). You could
buy special cutters. No big deal.

I also have no doubt whatsoever that the next iPhone will use a micro sim
card.

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bonaldi
Unless the _point_ is to stop you putting your iPhone SIM into the iPad.

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ugh
Wanna bet? :)

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jsz0
No one wants to swap SIMS back and forth between two devices constantly.
People will Jailbreak their iPhone and enable the built-in tethering support
or use a third party wifi tether app.

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absconditus
I'm still not sure why everyone desires 3G so badly. Even when you have a
great signal it isn't particularly fast. WiMax service is finally available in
several areas. This is what I was hoping for.

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dagw
3G is plenty fast in many parts of the world. For surfing the web it generally
feels as fast as using wifi to my adsl connection at home. For large downloads
it's obviously slower, but seeing 1Mbit down isn't uncommon on good days. Also
I can get a good 3G connection at my small cabin by the coast (where I don't
even get warm water or indoor plumbing), I doubt I'll be seeing WiMax out
there (and similar places) anytime soon.

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njharman
Watching a page download is slow. 3G is that slow. It's ok for apps but for
full webpage browsing, horrible. Don't know how people can stand it?

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elai
Where I live, 3G has minorly more latency and 2MBit down. And the only reason
it isn't 7Mbit down (as fast as my home connection) is because I have an
iphone 3G vs a 3GS. Alot of the 3G browsing slowness is from the smartphone
web browser being slow vs. the actual connection itself. It's alot more zippy
for me to browse the web tethering to my laptop than it is on my phone.

~~~
electromagnetic
Here in Canada Rogers already rolled out 21MB/S on its network. I've seen
speed test performed, and people are genuinely getting near this figure, and
better than my 14MB/S home connection.

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smokey_the_bear
This might actually spoil my plans to buy an iPad. I usually won't need 3g
coverage on it, but being able to throw in a sim for a road trip or whatever
was a huge plus for me. Enough to pay the extra for the 3g model at least.

I remember shaving down multiple headphone connectors with my pocketknife so I
could use them in my original iPhone. A normal headphone jack was probably the
biggest selling factor for the 3G for me. Ugh, curse apple and their beautiful
products.

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Anon84
How long until you get a product/service that cuts your old SIM to the micro
SIM size and gives you an adapter so you can continue to use it in your cell
phone?

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nzmsv
Or just clones the old SIM and writes out the data to a blank micro SIM.

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iheartmemcache
How would one go about doing this? Isn't all subscriber information locked?

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nzmsv
I was thinking along the lines of how the iPhone was first unlocked using
blank sims. Older sims had a vulnerability that allowed the key to be easily
bruteforced. Unfortunately, it appears that newer cards have not been cracked
yet, and can't be duplicated. I haven't been keeping up with this :)

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msingleton
It seems clear that this was a negotiation point for AT&T to create artificial
lock-in on the 3G service, in return they were willing to go month-to-month.

Even if you were able to tether the iPad to the iPhone, AT&T will chart a
similar monthly fee. It will be interesting to see if Apple is willing to
create separate models to work on CDMA, etc.

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electromagnetic
The bigger reason why _I_ cannot use my SIM in the iPad is because my networks
3G operates on AWS 1700. Which, thank you Apple, decided to exclude because
they're whoring themselves to AT&T and blocking T-Mobile, and in subsequence
Wind here in Canada.

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protomyth
Apple uses new standard as opposed to old - same story, different tech

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electromagnetic
Agreed, this adoption is inevitable and it's preferable to be ahead of the
curve than behind. The real issue will be if the next iPhone ships _without_
micro-SIM.

I would also like to see Apple launch a new Touch with 3G.

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pmorici
"I would also like to see Apple launch a new Touch with 3G."

They already have, it's called the iPhone. I think what you really mean is
iPhone with no contract data only plan.

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enjo
Wouldn't it seem likely that a future iPhone will use this new sim format?
Would make sense, might force a few folks into the upgrade path.

