Apple’s fight against the SIM slot: Europe is still left out of the iPhone 17

In the meantime, it saw the physical SIM card finally buried in its iPhones, as was previously carried out by the iPhone 16 in the USA. But then it turned out differently: Depending on the market, all three iPhone-17 models will stay the same as before, i.e. ESIM Plus SIM slot. Europe is one of the regions in which this is the case. The big exception is the iPhone Air, which will be ESIM-only worldwide-even including China. There, however, there is only one mobile phone provider that will sell the device: China Unicom. Apple had apparently had to negotiate in the long term: During the keynote, it was proudly announced that the ESIM is introduced “global” on the iPhone Air.

ESIM-Only also has advantages

In the future, the following countries will only have the ESIM-for all iPhone 17 variants: United States (as before), Canada, Mexico, Japan, Guam, US Jungfern Islands, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain and United Arab Emirates. In other world regions, the combination of ESIM and SIM slot remains. It was initially unclear whether there will be two physical SIM cards (without ESIM) in China (and Hong Kong and Macao).

Devices only have advantages with ESIM if you otherwise cope with the principle: Apple uses the resulting space for (a little) more battery. You should be able to watch video watches around two hours longer. It does not currently look like that in Europe you can get devices that are ESIM-Only-Apple has sold the variants so far depending on the market. If you absolutely want an ESIM-on-iphone 17 model, you have to buy in other regions. Before that, it should be checked whether all the necessary radio areas are covered. MMWave support apparently still only exists in the United States.

Fight against physical Sim with iPhone 14 started

As usual, Apple’s Sim-Slot houses a nano SIM. Since the iPhone 14 in 2022, the group had started to offer only ESIMs in the United States. With the space won, however, the group had initially done nothing – the room remained empty.

Basically, the group seems to plan to switch to ESIM in the long term. The iPhone Air is probably only the spearhead here. Mobile phone providers are currently training their employees on them. You can read all the details of ESIM and iPhones in a detailed FAQ.