[cromka]

It’s pretty common for European carriers to offer pay as you go plans via eSIM and an app. Pay with your card and can add it to your phone ahead of your trip.

So no, not “literally no one”. Things are changing, eSIM is increasingly common. Apple’s being Apple and just propels that change.

[skohan]

That’s nice but it’s still going to be 10 years or more until it’s as convenient as SIM cards everywhere.

When I crossed the border from Rwanda to Uganda, I bought a sim at a local shop, and a boy from the village cut it down to size by hand with a pair of scissors. They are not going to have ESIM anywhere soon.

ESIM requires carriers around the world to have the technical competency to make the activation and management process work smoothly and that is not something I would count on.

[cromka]

> That’s nice but it’s still going to be 10 years or more until it’s as convenient as SIM cards everywhere.

That's a bold statement to make. You realize that merely 15 years we didn't even have smartphones? How many random prophetic it-won't-happens happened in that time?

[skohan]

That's a fair point, 10 years might be a bit hyperbolic.

On the other hand, Smartphones were better positioned to drive adoption that eSIMs are. Smartphones create immediate utility for the user over feature phones. eSIM is arguably better than a physical sim, but at the end of the day you are only saving maybe a tiny inconvenience every time you have to swap out the sim. So there's not going to be a large push to switch from the user side.

A good comparison might be USB-C. People were writing in 2015 that the writing was on the wall for USB-A[1], and even though USB-C is basically better in every way, it's still not fully adopted 7 years later. It's not even the standard for desktop peripherals.

Also Smartphones are a highly competitive market with multiple vendors vying for users. Telecoms are mostly monopolies, and have little incentive to improve in most cases.

The only real driver I see for this is if eSIM-only devices get widespread popularity. I don't see it happening any time soon with low-end Android phones. Maybe wearables, but I feel like the idea of people in the developing world getting a second data plan for a wearable is a long way off.

But I could be wrong.

[1]: https://www.theverge.com/2015/6/2/8704551/usb-type-c-is-the-...

[bestnameever]

Looks like you can download an eSim by just scanning a QR-Code.

Found this for Uganda.

https://esim.holafly.com/esim-uganda/

[skohan]

That's $44 for 15 days and 6 GB! If I recall correctly, I was paying like a dollar a gigabyte or something on a local sim. You would go to any market and there would be these guys walking around with rolls of activation codes which you could buy for like $0.10 each and they were good for 100MB or a certain number of minutes when you typed it in the phone.

This is exactly what I'm talking about: if you have this phone you will be paying exorbitant prices for connectivity all over the world.

edit: it looks like the average in Uganda is $1.56/GB and you can get data as low as $0.45/GB USD

https://techjaja.com/the-cost-of-1gb-of-data-in-uganda-vs-th...

[cromka]

> https://twitter.com/airtel_ug/status/1499288905446739973?lan...

Airtel, for example, said it was work in progress, as of March this year.

Seriously, when it comes to application of new technology, the world isn't as behind the US as US might think. Often times, they actually get years ahead. I think you overestimate how long it's gonna take Africa or Asia to get eSIM up and running. They have a clear incentive now, as it's only a matter of time before Android manufacturers start to copy Apple in that regard, too.

[skohan]

Do they have a clear incentive? We're only talking about iPhones purchased in the US, so basically this only affects US tourists or expats in Africa which is going to be a tiny number of potential customers.

It remains to be seen if Android will copy this move, as Apple is even hesitant to roll it out anywhere besides the US. I almost wonder if there is something else motivating it, like pressures to prevent iPhones intended for the US market from being sold overseas.

[cromka]

eSIMs were being rolled out in many markets before Apple gave up the physical SIM completely. Clearly there’s been other incentive than sustaining iPhone users. With Apple’s move, they just have one more: the impending technological change, for which Apple, fortunately or not, is some kind of Messiah. They have a proven track of crating such momentum, and they just sent a clear message: adapt.