Now, with the Apple SIM card in iPad Air 2, you can switch between any participating carrier without having to get a new SIM card. This will definitely be convenient for those who travel frequently.
Correct. It'll allow you to switch between carriers when traveling, but the post that I was replying to was holding out hope that it would force competition in areas served by multiple carriers. It won't.
It's designed to save Apple a lot of money in their supply and distribution chain. The majority of their username doesn't travel internationally with any frequency.
Smart business, but not particularly useful for anything other than switching carriers at renewal time after a contract expires, domestically.
Other devices already did the unified RF chipsets or weird partial combinations thereof. Even Apple's.
Example: T-Mobile US has a frequency band for data services that the iPhone 5 won't do, but 5C and 5S will. The 5C and 5S also have the hardware to do WiFi calling where the 5 doesn't.
I assume the 6 and 6+ have whatever the 5C and 5S have. I may have missed it, but the 6 and 6+ do NOT have the "Apple SIM" capability, correct? Perhaps they do and I missed it.
However you slice it, the carriers get their cash. I wonder how many people will blow w out their data usage numbers with FaceTime and FaceTime Audio not realizing those are data and not part of their "unlimited" calling plan?
iTunes Match made carriers a lot of money on data, too, since you couldn't lock specific songs into any of the devices.
iCloud is going to make carriers even more mega money. Especially the auto-download and install of Apps and content and the new Family Share thing. Hit the purchase button and kick off six devices downloading and up to six more for each family member each time they click download.
Talk about a great deal for carriers! They have to be loving it. We've gone back to paying for Compuserve a buck a minute.
Heh. Or maybe we never really left.
There's awesome nerds at Howardforums that document all this internal cell network stuff all the way down to charges and fees besides the techs stuff. It's fun to read if you're bored.
