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KrzysisAverted t1_iu1dzw7 wrote

Reply to comment by _Suspended_Account_ in Anyone using a 14 Pro with T-Mobile eSim? by beigelightning

It's "not needed", sure, but you lose the convenience of being able to remove a sim card and put it into another phone and just having it work.

What happened to Apple's mantra of "it just works"?

Physical SIM cards on a GSM network are the pinnace of "it just works".

I have a physical T-Mobile SIM. I can put it into an iPhone and it "just works". I can then take it out and put it into a different phone and it still "just works". It's great! If my phone breaks, I can take a old spare phone out of a drawer or out of my car's glove box, pop the sim in there, and I'm good to go.

With an eSIM you just can't do that. You need to call the carrier or go to their website in order to transfer service to a new device.

What if I'm away from home, and my phone breaks, but I have a spare phone with me? If my primary phone was an iPhone 14 with eSIM, I'm screwed regardless. I can't move the SIM over because it doesn't physically exist. I can't call my carrier to move it over because my phone is broken. Apple took something that worked great and created a situation which makes it more likely to be stuck without a working phone.

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HealthyFruitSorbet t1_iu1j1pb wrote

You can transfer esim with two iPhone next to each other as long they both support it. Flawless for me so far

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KrzysisAverted t1_iu1jdnq wrote

Not if one of them is broken. Which is one of the most common cases where you'd need to switch sims urgently.

And, what if I want my "spare phone" to be an older iPhone (or even an Android) that doesn't support esim? I'm not going to keep a $1,000+ iPhone as a spare. I'd rather have it be a <$100 phone from a few years ago.

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JukeLuke t1_iu1mqt5 wrote

two points.

How often do you actually break your iPhone that you can’t retrieve data from it? I know it’s a valid reason, but me personally since 2010 I never had that issue

second point. the iPhone SE 2020 64gb is the cheapest iPhone that supports esim which you can buy as a backup. on swappa, those are going for $165 on average. No need for a $1000 spare iPhone.

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KrzysisAverted t1_iu1nrqk wrote

>How often do you actually break your iPhone that you can’t retrieve data from it?

I don't know. How often do you need to make an emergency call via Satellite to have emergency services rescue you from the wilderness? For most people the answer is also "almost never". But it's clearly big enough of a deal for Apple to flex it in every iPhone 14 ad. Same thing applies here. Even if you probably won't need to use it any time soon, it's good to have the feature there. Why remove it?

$165 is still pretty steep for a spare phone.

If it's just something to keep in the glove box in case of an emergency, I'm not going to invest $165 into it. An iPhone 6 (usually around $50-60 in used condition) would do the trick.

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Rommyappus t1_iu35cg9 wrote

What is your previous iPhone? Does it support esim? Probably, yes. https://support.apple.com/en-in/HT212780

If not, it will next time obviously =)

It might be harder to travel internationally without a physical sim though, but there is at least some support for esim internationally

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