All iPhone 14 models in the United States no longer have a physical SIM card slot at all. This means that this year, switching to a new iPhone won’t be as simple as removing the SIM card from your old device and plopping it in your shiny new iPhone 14.
Keep in mind that it is specifically iPhone 14 models sold in the United States that will not have physical SIM card support, while iPhone 14 devices outside the US still have a traditional SIM tray plus support for one eSIM.
Benefits of the transition to eSIM:
- No need to deal with a physical SIM card
- Can activate phone remotely much easier
- In case your iPhone gets stolen, thieves will not be able to use it
- More space inside the iPhone chassis for other components
- Network will be able to push an update directly to the phone
- You can test drive a network (T-Mobile allows 3 month trial of its network via eSIM)
- Less waste
Downsides of the transition to eSIM:
- Potential issues when traveling (if you go to Europe or Asia and want to use a prepaid card, will local carriers have pre-paid eSIM cards available? If not, does that mean you will be forced to pay expensive roaming fees?)
- Cannot quickly switch between phones by swapping a card! You have to do it all in software
- Dependent on carrier (will you have to call the carrier every time you want to switch to a new phone?)
- Will carriers one day start to charge for swapping eSIMs?
- The transition might be challenging for elderly people
The biggest issue with the removal of the physical SIM card in the iPhone 14 might be for frequent travelers that are used to popping in a local SIM card for data and avoid paying big roaming fees.
For example, most of the Caribbean countries do not seem to support eSIM, so that is one destination where US travelers might be practically forced to pay for roaming, if they have an iPhone 14. We do, however, expect more carriers to jump on the eSIM bandwagon after Apple’s announcement, so we are optimistic most people won’t run into troubles.
Apple supported carriers
In the United States, all three major carriers, T-Mobile, AT&T and Verizon Wireless support eSIM fully.
At the end of the day, Apple has always made it clear that the switch to eSIM has been a question of “when” rather than “if”.
You can store multiple eSIMs on one device
With all that in mind, well… the big eSIM moment has come!
Do you have any questions about the iPhone 14’s transition to eSIM in the United States? Let us know below.
