Along with Apple’s introduction of the iPad Air 2 comes a new take on the lowly SIM card. Not only does the tablet ship with just about every LTE band and frequency one could want, the hardware is delivered preloaded with an agnostic SIM for network authentication. As T-Mobile’s CEO tweets:
So the Apple SIM theoretically saves Apple some packaging expenses and provides us, the end users, with amazing flexibility – buy the iPad and choose whichever carrier we want at any point after we get it home. And, down the road, we’d be free to flip carriers as coverage or pricing changes. It’s a grand, consumer friendly vision. However, the future hasn’t quite arrived. Due, once again, to short-sighted carrier protectionism (and technical glitches).
First, Verizon has chosen to completely abstain. Buy you iPad direct from Apple, and your Apple SIM registration choices are limited to AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile. Choose AT&T and the SIM becomes locked to the current edition of Ma Bell, requiring replacement should you want to later change up your 4G provider. Sprint and T-Mobile, with fewer subscribers and thus more motivation, are fully onboard with the reprogrammable Apple SIM. Yet, multiple attempts to register my iPad Air 2 on T-Mobile’s network… failed. A 25 minute call to T-Mobile support, followed by about 10 minutes of waiting, ultimately got it done – despite my doubts. Being first can often be inconvenient.
With that, we’ll once again give John Legere the floor for Apple SIM closing remarks: