
Apple iPad’s Tiny SIM Is Just There to Mess With You - brk
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/02/micro-sim-business/
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shalmanese
It appears increasingly likely that...

Gemalto, which probably... Gemalto couldn’t confirm... Gemalto is the likely
maker...

There is no evidence that... But the circumstantial evidence suggests...

Carrara agreed with our prediction...

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PanMan
I have been thinking about this last week. First I thought it was some sort of
"conspiracy", to make us all buy new data plans. However, the more I think
about it, the more it makes sense: Apple just always goes with the newest and
latest. They have changed their display ports about 4 times over the last few
years, as new standards erupted, while the old would have sufficed. Why not do
that for sim cards? Also, it's not really an issue, as you can just cut your
current sim to fit the iPad. I'm sure as soon as the iPad gets any traction,
there will be tools for this, as well as cheap plastic adapters to fit the
uSim in your current phone.

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Tichy
They are making good money with display adapters. Mine cost 30€ from the Apple
store (MiniDVI -> DVI).

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joezydeco
I don't know if Monoprice ships to Europe, but there _has_ to be a better
alternative to the Apple Store there. You can get a comparable cable from
Monoprice for about 8 Euros.

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kylec
Isn't it also possible that the next iPhone will have a micro SIM as well, and
that Apple is simply going for (eventual) parity across their product line? I
certainly think that interior space may well be at a premium in the next
iPhone, necessitating the need for the smaller form factor.

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mechanical_fish
Precisely. The article has a strange inability to look forward in time.

I also wouldn't trust these journalists and their crack team of wild guessers
to know for _sure_ that space isn't a premium even in the iPad itself. You
can't judge a book by its cover, and you can't judge the internals of a piece
of modern portable electronics by squinting at the outer case. The engineers
have to pack _a lot of stuff_ into these devices, in a specific configuration,
as well as leaving room for the next generation of stuff. (Does anybody doubt
that the iPad will someday grow a camera? That it might someday need a CDMA
multiplexer?) And the size of the SIM may well have ramifications: It affects
the size of the access panel that leads to the SIM, for example. It also has
to be placed in a spot on the motherboard that makes it easy to omit, since
not all iPads will have a SIM, and such space may be at more of a premium than
we think...

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DavidSJ
_Does anybody doubt that the iPad will someday grow a camera?_

I don't doubt that the iPad could grow a camera. But it seems to me that it's
not technical limitations keeping a camera from the iPad. I wonder if it's
just the _awkwardness_ of holding an iPad in the way necessary to take photos
that led Steve Job to scrap the idea. He'd rather leave a feature off entirely
than have it be implemented in an inelegant way.

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ugh
This article is gonna look pretty stupid when the next iPhone uses a micro
SIM.

That whole micro SIM thing is really pretty ridiculous. Imagine for a moment a
world in which the iPad uses a normal SIM card. Space is certainly no problem.
But there is this other device where space is a problem. How was it called
again? Oh, right! iPhone. It seems more than reasonable that Apple would put a
micro SIM in there as soon as possible. So now, what do we have in this
hypothetical world? Incompatible SIMs! The press gets to write the exact same
story, no matter what Apple does! Yay!

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rbanffy
Interesting. I was under the impression all I needed to turn a SIM into a
micro-SIM (or whatever they are called) is a sharp blade and a little eye-hand
coordination. If I don't mess up big, all I need to build an adapter that
allows me to use my newly made micro-SIM on any GSM phone are the plastic
pieces I cut off, some glue and a little bit of thin, rigid, plastic to help
hold the freshly made micro-SIM in place.

Seriously... Are all these articles about how Apple is out to screw AT&T's
customers really necessary?

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jacquesm
Looks like a nice opportunity for someone to make a micro-sim to sim adapter.
That can't be that hard, it's just a mechanical adaptation.

Manufacturers have used incompatibility to achieve business goals for the
longest time, check out the print cartridges and the diagnosis plugs on
european cars.

Now if apple would have come up with a proprietary sim card that would be
(bad) news.

It's pretty clear they don't want you to use your Iphone voice plan on the
Ipad anyway because it can't make voice calls.

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Tichy
"This way, they can charge customers twice for 3G wireless data: Once for the
iPhone, and once for the iPad."

How braindead would a customer have to be to fall for that? Alternatively, the
customer could just be super-rich and not care.

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jrockway
How else are they going to get 3G access?

AT&T is going to say, "sorry, we can't give you a micro-SIM, because your plan
is for the iPhone" or "sorry, we can't give you a normal-SIM, your plan is for
the iPad". End of story, as the 3G radios only work on AT&T's network.

My guess is that the 3G version is just not going to sell very well. It's
super-expensive initially, and has a super-expensive monthly cost too.

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mechanical_fish
If a large SIM can be cut with scissors and turned into a small SIM, the small
SIM can be slid into an insert (purchased for a buck or two, or simply cut out
of plastic or cardstock) and turned back into a big SIM.

I think it more likely that the sheer hassle of swapping out SIMs every time
you want to switch devices (or take a phone call while using the iPad) will
mitigate against doing this all the time. But there's no reason one couldn't
do it.

I'm leaning toward the "buy a WiFi iPad and an optional MeFi box" option at
the moment -- that way I keep my phone a phone, diversify my wireless options,
and get WiFi for my laptop as well as the iPad. But I will need to do a bit
more research and budgeting.

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PostOnce
Surely, it must be possible to make a non-hideous adapter? I imagine, though,
that it must be more complex than a microSD -> SD adapter, or someone would
have said something already.

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sern
You can file a regular "mini" SIM down to size.

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cdibona
The same is true of hard drives, and monitors. _Snort_

