In revealingnew iPad Pros and iPad Airson Tuesday, Apple appears to have glossed over a significant change for 4G/5G cellular models. All of them nowrely exclusively on eSIM, whereas previous models supported swappable nano-SIM cards. The change could prove more convenient for some buyers, but problematic for others, including travelers or people upgrading from aprevious iPad.
iPad Pro, Air, and Pencil Pro: Everything announced at Apple’s ‘Let Loose’ event
After over a year of waiting, Apple showed off new versions of the iPad Air, iPad Pro, Apple Pencil, and Magic Keyboard.
“[iPad Pro/iPad Air] uses eSIM technology and is not compatible with physical SIM cards,” Apple now says on theTech Specspages for each product.
The company acknowledges that not all carriers support the eSIM format, which could block some shoppers from buying a cellular iPad for the first time, or upgrading from a previous one. When it comes to travel, the issue is that while short-term travel eSIMs are available for many regions, that’s not always the case – and once you’ve arrived at a destination, it’s frequently easier to buy a nano-SIM at a carrier outlet or third-party retailer.
When it is supported, eSIM allows people to obtain and activate a SIM without having to go to a store or have a card delivered. It’s possible to ask some carriers to convert physical SIMs to eSIMs, which is what prospective iPad buyers may now have to do.
Why is Apple going eSIM-only?
Timely, cost-effective, and design dimensions
It’s likely a matter of cutting production costs and improving design efficiency. An eSIM only requires a tiny amount of onboard circuitry, whereas a nano-SIM slot requires a card reader and, of course, room for the SIM card to fit. Removing the nano-SIM could allow Apple to shift money and design space elsewhere. Indeed, it may have helped the iPad Pro become even lighter and thinner – 13-inch models measure just 5.1mm, even thinner than an iPod nano. It’s worth noting, though, that the thickness of the iPad Air has remained unchanged since the last generation at 6.1mm.
The company has an even longer history of trying to eliminate ports and buttons in general.
Apple first started going down this road with theiPhone 14. US models were the first Apple devices to go eSIM-only, and that policy continued with theiPhone 15. Outside the US, however, iPhones continue to include both nano-SIM and eSIM, presumably because Apple can’t count on every major carrier having eSIM compatibility. It’s not certain why the company would be okay with excluding those carriers when it comes to iPads, but one possibility is that, since most shoppers buy Wi-Fi-only iPads anyway, it can cut production costs without excluding too many customers.
The company has an even longer history of trying to eliminate ports and buttons in general. It once bragged about the “courage” needed to eliminate the 3.5mm headphone jack on the iPhone 7, and it added MagSafe wireless charging to iPhones starting with the iPhone 12. It once tried replacing the function keys on MacBook Pros with a touchscreen strip – the Touch Bar – but that was so unpopular that every MacBook model had reverted to physical keys by the end of 2023.
