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:
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As an update, T-Mobile's coverage has improved in my area over the last few months - along with their consumer-friendly plans and pricing structure, with fewer BS fees, the network is now good enough in our day-to-day routine that we're staying put. And $10 to add this tablet with doubled data (up to 5GB) is a steal. (They also offering up a compelling pay-as-you go plan at $10 for 5GB of data to be used over 5 months, not to mention the free monthly 200MB granted to all tablets registered with their network.)
Also interesting that none of this Apple SIM detail was revealed in the professional iPad Air 2 reviews ... that's what happens when a company hands you an already-activated device I suppose. Not quite an authentic experience.
IT seems to me that a carrier agnostic sim is only useful after a carrier has locked your existing sim to its network. carrier agnosticism would seem to make it not need a sim at all.
I guess it's still useful because when travelling outside the US, I can still go into a newsagent and pick up a sim for a reasonable fee.
Does it really matter if the SIM can be used with any carrier? The important thing is that the hardware works with any carrier so you can just sign up with carrier of choice and plug in their SIM. Or am I missing something? For example I have an original AT&T iPad that I can't link up to my wife's verizon account...though I know this $700 beast has very little useful life.