Apple pulls back from bespoke SIM plan
Like Google before it, iPhone maker learns the risks of incurring cellco hostility
Published: 22 November, 2010
READ MORE: Europe | Apple | SIM | Handset
Disruptive mobile web players underestimate the cellcos at their peril. Carriers' fury at attempts to dilute their relationship with the consumer already forced Google to admit defeat on its Nexus One store. Now Apple has waved a white flag too, cancelling plans for an iPhone with an embedded SIM that could be activated for any operator's network.
Both vendors had tried to use the power of their mobile platforms to hasten open access, and set up sales structures that sidelined the carrier. But according to reports, Apple has backed away from a bespoke SIM for 'iPhone 5', which would have enabled Apple to provide a choice of contracts, and activation of new users, without cellco input. However, it may retain the scheme for the iPad.
But operators, especially in Europe, where the scheme was expected to appear first, threatened to withdraw subsidies and prioritize other smartphones over the Apple device in their marketing - just at a time when the iPhone is facing serious competition for the first time from Android models. "Apple has long been trying to build closer and closer relationships and cut out the operators," a senior source at a European cellco told UK newspaper The Daily Telegraph. "But this time they have been sent back to the drawing board with their tails between their legs."
Apple has already experimented with its own SIM cards in the iPad, which uses a microSIM in the 3G models. Users wanting an unlocked tablet have to buy the microSIM from Apple or approved carriers. This card is likely to be replaced by the product that Apple has been developing with digital security firm Gemalto for the next iPhone. This will be an easier move since operators do not subsidize the iPad and only offer month-by-month data plans, so the consumer lock-in is already weaker than in handsets.
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