JackMackey

Verizon trade in value last week:

iPhone Mini 12 = $ 800
iPhone 8 = $ 200

Both in good condition

crackjack

I doubt that. Unless the Chinese government reversed its approach to eSIMs, at least China will remain dual-pSIM (and HK will at least have the option of a physical SIM).

Even outside that, eSIM usage is not that high in all countries; some are ahead of curve (e.g. UK, Australia, Japan) and might have the switch forced on, but there are a number where some major ISPs do not offer eSIM capabilities yet. It will be at least a 3-year approach here (unless Apple really wants to twist arms).

Relevant discussion on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/ios/comment...ding_to_apple/

draver

You can buy an iPhone 12 Mini on Swappa for less than $300 right now, so if that offer is valid with VZ, that might be the way to get it. Other than credit spread over 36 months, I wonder why they are giving such high valuation on an older, less expensive model? Apple only gives $250 for the same phone. I have an iPhone 8 I bought for $100 6 months ago for a trade in I never did, but I am keeping it as a spare/hot spot for travel.

JackMackey

They are indeed valid because those are the two we traded in for 14 Pros for those amounts. As to why, I can’t say. My daughter kept her 8 for longer than usual since she liked the button. We normally get the new versions and keep the most recent ones as a backup.

We also normally buy directly from Apple but the VZ offers were too good to pass on.

der_saeufer

I don't know if it's deliberate refusal to participate or that they just haven't done it, but lots of carriers don't support iOS 16's eSIM transfer functionality. None of the Indian carriers do, so the procedure is the same as before: get the carrier to re-issue the QR code. Thankfully that's relatively easy but still way more work than moving a SIM to a different phone--and in India, carriers block SMS for 24 hours after a SIM replacement to prevent SIM swap fraud, so it adds another pain point that's not there with a physical SIM.

LIH Prem

Largely depends on countries like China if they can get rid of sim slots worldwide, doesn't it? I agree that's where it's going and that's what they want to do and getting rid of a physical slot is better overall for the device in so many ways.

-David

ryandelmundo

The no SIM slot is such a bummer. I don't get why they had to be so pushy about it.

They're selling them with SIM slots all over the world. Why not sell them here, and make it a mark-up? +$50?

I can't imagine 90% of folks care about a slot, and then there's us here on Flyertalk! Of course the one with a slot would likely not be pushed by the big carriers which means no great deals to be had. From their perspective, does the eSIM make customers more or less sticky? Does anyone even know to unlock their phones so they can try the Tmobile Test drive for 3 months for free? Probably not.

I was in Thailand 2 years ago with my i11 and changed my SIM to eSIM. Then I got a new i13 and it of course wouldn't transfer, so I had to go to the AIS office to get it moved to the new phone. I decided to go back to a regular SIM to avoid that frustration again. Really really annoying. But at least Thailand has eSIM. I'm in Colombia now and I don't think they do.

In a year or two we will have to see if this works out as a win for us. In Thailand I get a local sim with unlimited data for under $6. Indonesia and Colombia at the moment are about $8 for 30gb. Those are pretty awesome prices and more data than I can use if I'm not tethering. Maybe a global eSIM with $1-$2/gb data will show up then we can ditch all this local SIM stuff altogether. I suspect the loss of the SIM card will be huge for eSIM and we may get some more creative products!

The other thing about the iPhone SIM/eSIM management is you can't delete any SIM you no longer have! My list of ex-SIMs is a mile long, this is maybe 1/3 of them. See pic below. It's infuriating not to be able to delete them! At least 2 of them are eSIM's that expired. I'm guessing this started when they added eSIM to the phone, so that's every SIM I've had since I got an iPhone 11 before COVID. Imagine if I'd had another 2 years of travel instead of being stuck in Thailand due to COVID? If I'm just being stupid and there's a fix, let me know, but I've looked and tried everything and there doesn't seem to be.

der_saeufer

You can delete all of those "used as. . .No SIM" lines. Just tap on them and it'll ask some cryptic question about reassigning the contacts to your primary SIM (of which there aren't any, because it's not 1998 and we don't store contacts on our SIMs). Hit OK and the line is gone. It's the same behavior whether you remove a physical SIM or delete an eSIM.

ryandelmundo

Ah well thanks for having me try that again. It says "would you like to update the contacts with the new number." I assumed that meant I would be sending notifications to all my hundreds of contacts about a new number. I didn't want to blast everyone so I never said yes to that. I'm not sure if they reworded that, as it seems more clear now than I remember. And I do get "so and so has changed their number" all the time, which drives me crazy. Why would it have been so hard to have a "No don't update my contacts?" The choice was not really a choice!

Huge Thanks, now I can get rid of all those!

draver

If you swipe the line you wish to delete to the left, it should produce a red button with "Delete eSIM?". A tap and it's gone. At least it has worked that way for my iPhone 13 PM and the current i14 PM.

LIH Prem

It's asking if you want to update your contacts to use a new number on your phone. It's not going to notify anybody else. The phone remembers which sim plan you last used to call a contact and uses that as the default to use next time, though you can change it when you make the call. Delete those old plans without fear. If you let it, it will update any number with the old default plan you are deleting to use your new default or you can just say no and it won't change any defaults.

-David

i0wnj00

I thought this would have been an issue for me however, and to be honest, I won't miss it so when I can I will get the 14 Pro Max.
I haven't had the need for a physical SIM since the iPhone 11 Pro Max and if I need a physical SIM slot I have my Samsung Galaxy S8 or iPhone 7 for that.

ryandelmundo

Well there certainly is not a way to say "no." You either change them or you can't get rid of the SIM card.

After removing all those SIMs and being forced to update the contacts, I have a bunch of iMessages/Calling from a few friends that don't work. Basically I have some friends that I've known for ages and we all travel a lot so we've had many multiple numbers going back years. It seems it updated some of those old numbers to supercede their latest numbers as primary, and now I gotta go and sort that all out manually. Annoying. Really annoying. Probably more annoying as having left all the SIM entries there.

So I again I have to ask, why isn't there the "delete sim and do not update contacts" option. Anyway sorry to hijaack the thread. For 99% of folks I'm sure its fine but this is the kind of stuff I expect Apple to get right, and drives me nuts when I don't get the option to do nothing.

Taikucing

After reading all the review and trying the new iPhone 14 Pro Max, I decided to get a used iPhone 13 Pro max for my wife instead and get a 13 mini for me. It should hold us off for couple more years before we'll need to upgrade.

NYCRachel

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT209096

^^ Apple has a list of all countries and carriers with eSIM.

Do these carriers offer the same tourist SIM rates as a regular SIM card though?

Going to Malaysia and Singapore in a few weeks and super bummed about this. Was going to buy a new phone (have iPhone 12 Pro Max) but may just go to the Apple store and spend $69 on a battery replacement (starting to struggle for it to stay charged all day).