[jeroenhd]

MicroSD cards go into the same slot the SIM cards go into. Unless Apple stopped taking SIM cards, there's going to be a bit that takes a sliver of plastic and metal. Clearly, Apple has already solved this problem, they just choose not to add the design complexity (and frankly, damage to their popcorn pricing model) of a microSD slot.

[sneak]

Apple has stopped taking SIM cards in US devices. Only the iPhones sold in Europe still have sim slots, and I assume those do worse in immersion testing.

[xp84]

bold assumption to make without sources or testing. Rubber gaskets are a thing and last time I had a sim slot on my iphone, they had one there.

I know immersion testing is about depth and time, but 99% of the time phones are in danger of water damage, we are talking about a 6' pool or a 6 inch bathtub/sink/toilet for 15 seconds, not being submerged in 100' of seawater for 10 days while SCUBA diving. A rubber gasket on a SIM tray does perfectly fine in these normal situations.

I think it takes a pretty tortured interpretation of reality to not acknowledge that Apple hates SD cards for one reason only: So they can sell additional storage for $100 per 128GB (and secondarily, because when people underestimate their needs, they're likely to either pay for expensive iCloud storage to compensate, or upgrade their otherwise perfectly working phone in a short time in order to get a bigger SSD. Apple wins in all cases.)

They're protecting their legendary, industry-leading margins. Which they're free to do. And we customers are free to deride them for their extreme stinginess.