I was afraid of this, when I bought my 15PM. Traveled to Chile, and what would have been a quick transaction at the Entel store ended in disappointment. Apparently you need a Chilean ID to purchase an eSIM. Fortunately, I brought a pixel 3 I can hotspot, and takes a nano sim, but it’s something of a hassle. My only regret so far.
Yeah I’m with the physical sim crowd on this one. It’s utterly stupid that Apple is doing this. Incredibly inconvenient and a huge hassle for those of us eu travel. Yea I understand the esim is the future, but the future hasn’t caught up with a large portion of the world. I wish you could easily buy the other versions of iPhones in the US, which still have sim slots. Apple: “nope, nobody travels, nobody travels, and if they do they should pay exorbitant international roaming charges becaus…” Now I’ll wait for the Apple fan club to “let me have it”.
On the flip side, the cellular providers won’t catch up until they’re forced. They still haven’t bothered with carrier side RCS. Apple’s going eSIM as much as possible now, and how much you want to bet Samsung and Pixel will follow through within a year or two?
But none of that diminishes the pain points for those of you traveling internationally this year, I know.
There is a study out there that suggests that middle class Americans only travel internationally once per decade, and that includes Mexico and Canada. I’m guessing that Apple figured out that they could save a few bucks in costs and operational efficiency per phone by removing the physical sim. That extra profit was enough to screw over the small minority of us who have the privilege of visiting other countries pretty often.