Apple Explores Dual-SIM Capability in iPhones, Patent Filing Reveals (ibtimes.com.au) 127
Apple is exploring the idea of having two SIM card slots in its iPhones. The Cupertino-based company has registered a patent for a dual-SIM card technology that involves two separate antennas. Though not as popular in the US, and UK markets, smartphones with dual-SIM card capability are extremely popular in developing regions such as China and India. For instance, according to Counterpoint Research marketing firm, more than 90 percent smartphones sold in India, world's fastest growing smartphone market had dual-SIM card slot in them. But why does Apple care about India and China, you ask. The iPhones sales growth has dropped everywhere in the world, except India, which is also the world's second most populous nation, and world's second largest smartphone market. As per Apple's previous earnings call, sales of iPhones grew by 50 percent in India, and Tim Cook has said that he sees a huge potential in the country.
Wow how original (Score:2, Flamebait)
two antennas! Nobody could have figured that out other than the geniuses at apple.
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Why didn't you patent it?
Boy you're a real moron!
It is generally hard or pointless to patent things other people have already invented and are widely deployed. Of course if you are big enough troll you might be able to get away with it, at least for PR purposes to the faithful.
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Why didn't you patent it?
I would have, but I didn't have $10k to throw at a stupid idea.
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Because there's prior art since 2000.
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A patent has to (or should) be something new. You can't patent making a fire by rubbing two sticks together even if no one has done it yet. People who think you can patent shit like this probably sit around all day trying to figure out how to make money by doing nothing all day long, rather than actually doing real work to earn it.
Re: Wow how original (Score:4, Funny)
Fuck that, I'm going to patent three antennas.
Unless Gillette got there first.
IRL (Score:2)
And IRL, lots of people have already done in the past.
Tons of asian hardware maker.
Random example:
The Jolla C, produced in partnership with the Indian company "Intex" has dual-SIMs
The Fairphone 2, also features dual-SIMs.
It just happens that most of these are produced in countries that don't give a shit about intellectual property (e.g.: China)
And probably none of those have been produced in the US (the two example I cited are European. Finnish and Dutch respectively).
So Apple will probably the first to *pa
Re: IRL (Score:2)
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Miami Florida -> Prior art ? (Score:2)
Hmmm... interresting...
Does BLU produce also dual-radio dual-SIM (where it's not 1 single radio alternating between 2 SIMS, but each SIM being constantly connected to the network through its own pipe) ?
If that's the case, there wouldn't be much that Apple could realistically patent that wouldn't be prior art by the company you mention.
On the other hand, given the warchest of Apple and the amount of lawyers they can afford, it's not a sure thing that BLU will be able to claim prior art before being driven to
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My 2014 Motorola Moto G has two SIM slots.
Speaking of dumb ideas... (Score:1)
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Duh! The SIM-card isn't just used for storing numbers. It's a physical token representing your number and what operator you are using.
Image the hassle when you get a new phone and have to call customer support to validate it and get your number ported to it from the old one. Or moving to a new operator (if it's allowed).. Brrr...
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Re:None of the above (Score:1)
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One solution is to make SIM locking of phones illegal, another is to buy your own damn phone, not get it from a carrier.
Also, couldn't I easily steal your numbers, or would you lose access to them? locked out of gmail because an algorithm says you're too far from home, account stolen, no internet access because you need the numbers to access the internet, malware fucks up your phone steals your numbers and deletes them allowing bad guys to use your access in the mean time.
My current phone has 2x SIMs (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:My current phone has 2x SIMs (Score:5, Informative)
its the dual radio antennas that are being patented. Because adding more than one Antenna is considered "innovation" these days.
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I suppose you could say the patent is for two profiles (phone numbers) on a single phone. Except Samsung already has had that capability in production ph [wikipedia.org]
So Confusing (Score:1)
Re:My current phone has 2x SIMs (Score:4, Funny)
So basically you will have twice as much opportunity to hold it wrong?
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its the dual radio antennas that are being patented. Because adding more than one Antenna is considered "innovation" these days.
The patent [uspto.gov] they are referring to simply combines multiple antennas (2 or more) with multiple SIMs (2 or more). That's what Apple claimed as 'innovation'. It could be a new idea because it is not exactly dual antennas or dual SIMs. The innovation should be able to scale more than just 2 antennas and 2 SIMs at the same time. Thus, it is possible that the way to deal with these multiple antennas and SIMs could be different from dealing with dual.
Anyway, I still think that the patent technology is a bit too vag
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The entire history of Apple is a long string of taking existing ideas and claiming them as their own.
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640K SIMs will be enough for everybody.
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Lots of telecommunication devices with two antennas already. Maybe not phones, but that shouldn't matter. Except that to the US patent ofice it does seem to matter, or at least they're too stupid to deny these patents.
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And? You said absolutely anything to counter his argument. But keep attacking your straw men, it really looks like you have a firm grasp on things, anonymous fucktard.
Re:My current phone has 2x SIMs (Score:4, Interesting)
SIMs with rounded corners, duh. Or maybe the patent is on a method of inserting SIMs into a phone with no slots for a SIM tray via quantum tunneling.
My boss has Apple everything and has been wanting a phone with dual SIMs so he can have one company line and a personal line on the same phone. My oneplus 3 already has this.
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The one feature I *want* is to be able to define the outbound caller id, so I can make work related calls from the phone, and have my office number show. I can fire up the voip app and make the call through that, but its clutzy. There should be a simple way, *without* having 2 separate cell phone plans, to let you register legit alias numbers* and select them on outgoing calls.
* verfied by the phone company as 'belonging' to you/your organization. ('spoofing with bullshit go-nowhere numbers must die'.)
Dual
Re:My current phone has 2x SIMs (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't know *any* cell phone that does that natively, nor do I think that that would be a good idea. That just screams abuse potential to me.
A separate VOIP client, or a work-provided DISA service, are much safer options, at least from an admin standpoint.
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"I don't know *any* cell phone that does that natively,"
None do.
"That just screams abuse potential to me."
What exactly is the potential for abuse? You can already TRIVIALLY have a 2nd (voip) number call forwarded to your primary, so in bound aliasing is already 'solved'.
The only bit is missing is that you can't place an outbound call using that 2nd number from the phone. Except... well you can can trivially use an app to make calls from your phone via the 2nd number... its just really clunky to have to use
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Wait what? If you have a dual-sim phone you can't readily call from either number? No wonder you're annoyed... Yeah, that would be a minimum I would expect from a dual-sim device too.
I thought you were talking about arbitrarily spoofing phone numbers.
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No, I can't do that with a single sim phone. That's the only feature single sim phones are missing. And dual sim is overkill to solve that. I should just be able to get two numbers assigned by my carrier on one rate plan -- and then make or receive calls from either.
Don't need 2 sims, 2 rate plans... that's overkill for me.
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Ah ok, now I see. Yeah, I dunno if that is even possible. That would require a whole new level of coordination between regulations, carriers, and handset software, and I don't know if any of that actually exists, and if it doesn't, I don't think it would be worth the headaches involved to implement.
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Dual SIM phones are a godsend for traveling. Get a job assignment in another country, go down and pick up a pay as you go SIM, activate, and you are up with local calling at a cheap rate instead of the ungodly charges for international roaming from U.S. carriers.
The phone I use, BLU Studio Energy dual sim, has settings under SIM control for setting either sim to be default for outgoing calls or set to ask which sim each time. You have the same type of options for SMS and MMS as well. This is old hat but
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You have now invented Google Voice.
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Except I still need a plan with my carrier of choice. I can't get local numbers from GV in Canada... etc, etc, etc... so sure... I've invented google voice... but made I've made it a non-voip service from actual carriers.
Scrap non-VoIP (Score:1)
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ah yes, an american guy who's never been out of his little box.
Swing and a miss. I'm not american.
or having living in a country that has regional phone plans on different carriers in different parts. like, well like most countries. maybe you'll be able to think of a use for 2 sim cards
No, I get it. And if you read the entire thread including my followups you'd have seen that. Dual sim is for people who need service from more than one carrier at a time. And that is a real niche. But ~most~ people who want 2 numbers on one handset just want to separate personal / business calls better without carrying two phones, without running clunky voip apps for 1/2 their calls.
And as far as it goes dual sim for travel with one sim for each 'place' is still a PITA...
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Most people who want 2 numbers want them so they can use plans from different carriers so they spend less total money.
Yes. But they don't need dual sim phones for that either. And really dual sim phones is a more expensive solution. IF they want to save money they'll fuck around with forwarding. I've been there and done that. Get a local sim. Forward your home number to it. local calls work. Inbound calls from home just work. Caller ID to 'home' is screwed up. But it is the cheapest solution.
I've finally figured out what's going on here. you see, when you talk to and hang out with the locals, they don't want to call a different country to talk to you.
Get a local sim. Forward your home number to it. You need 2 sim cards, but you don't need a dual sim phone.
People who travel have friends in different countries or hang out with people they meet in other countries, swap phone numbers, call each other up to see a movie, go clubbing, fuck each other in the ass.
But only in 2 places? No n
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I'm looking for a decent smartphone with dual SIMs for exactly that reason right now. For a long time, I've had two little feature phones (one work, one personal) partly because they're small enough to carry around at the same time, but they're well past their best by now and it's not exactly convenient taking two devices everywhere. I'm not that bothered about apps, but an iPhone that could replace both existing devices would be an option worth considering.
At the risk of going slightly off-topic for a minu
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I can definitely second the OP3 route. I don't have a 3T, I bought my 3 right before the 3T came out. However, it is a fantastic phone. It is very fast and, so far, it has been rock solid stable as well as having impressive battery life.
Also, while the Dash charging is proprietary... which does kind of suck, it *does* indeed charge very fast. My experience is that 10 minutes of charging will give you 2 hours or more battery life. 30 minutes charging will get you back to 100% from any charge level.
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It's been good to me so far (about 3 months). I haven't had any serious issues, though once I attempted to make a note for myself by sending myself an SMS like I used to do on my previous phone, and that seemed to have completely confused Messenger into not sending anything at all to anyone until I deleted that outgoing text. I bought a $10 case for it off of Amazon, which it really needed because the camera lens sticks out the back, making me worry about scratching the screen if I set it face down, or sc
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Why not get a dual SIM dumb/feature phone instead?
That's something I've seriously considered, but a few smartphone features, particularly things related to having a convenient web browser and decent camera, would sometimes be useful to me.
Also, my experience of feature phones in recent years, even relatively high end ones, is that key components often lack the quality that even a mid-range modern smartphone has now, and their performance and long-term reliability suffer as a result.
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My oneplus 3 already has this.
"Already." My first Android phone, a Chinese 5" phablet I bought 5 years ago, was dual SIM. I paid less than 140 EUR for the phone, shipped.
(BTW, It still works, but I wanted a better GPS receiver so I am now using a Galaxy S3.)
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But if you carefully look at your phone (Score:2)
If you carefully read what's written on the back cover of your phone,
there's probably "Made in China" written there.
And your brand is probably some random unknown no-name asian brand (that has been already successfully flooding the Indian market for the part decade).
Whereas that one is going to have "Designed in California" written in it (or maybe even "Assembled in the USA" because that's where they do the finally "assembly step". Like slaping the logo on the back).
And it's brand that has successfully brai
You ask (Score:5, Insightful)
No, no I'd never ask that. That's just about the stupidest question I've ever heard.
Dual sims are popular in Asia... (Score:3)
...and in the Americas and Europe, they can use that space to put in a headphone jack! I hear they are extremely popular in those regions.
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Why? Just attack the 1 inch headphone to lightning adapter on the end of your headphone cable and you won't have to worry about it anymore.
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Just don't try to charge your phone while you're listening to music...
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Bluetooth has issues for audio. Especially if you have more than one BT accessory attached. I realize that not many people have more than one BT device attache at one time, but there are people who do. Audio quality can really suck at that point.
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I leave BT and WIFI on all the time and my phone lasts from around 7am to 6pm and is at around 50% charge by that time.
I don't really do much with it except read ebooks (about 40 minutes during lunch), check/respond to e-mail/messages (1-2minutes many times a day) and listen to podcasts (around an hour with the screen off) with the occasional game (about 10 minutes or less), web search or map/bus schedule lookup (5 minutes or so max).
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Because why keep a jack built into the phone, when you can remove it and charge extra for an adapter!
See, this is what happens when there are too many MBAs in the world.
For 2017, I predict that Apple is going to remove the dial pad screen and sell an external, lightning adapter compatible dial pad. It will be modern retro for all the hip technologists out there. Those who really want to stand out from their peers will have the rotary phone accessory.
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Your analogy does not work because the PCs still had a keyboard plug. PC makers did not decide that users no longer need to connect keyboards to their computers.
Apple on the other hand decided that people with headphones do not need to connect them to their phones / music players. But, apparently enough people really do need to make the connection, so Apple went ahead and developed an adapter. But they are not providing the adapter for free. It is an added expense that was previously not there.
Did Apple
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Plus an adapter isn't really much of a pain in the arse for something that sits on your desk.
For something you carry around, it is.
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Plus an adapter isn't really much of a pain in the arse for something that sits on your desk.
It sure is when it has the reliability of an Apple adapter or anything Apple makes with a cable.
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Foreign travel... (Score:2)
The main driver is for the ability to pick up a cheap PAYG SIM when visiting another country and use it side-by-side with your own - cheap local calls and not going bankrupt paying for data roaming, while still having your own number active.
I spend a few months every year in another country, so my last two phones have been dual-SIM for exactly this reason.
I realise most Americans never travel more than 50 miles from their home, and so this is a non-issue, but for the rest of us it's rather handy.
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I realise most Americans never travel more than 50 miles from their home, and so this is a non-issue, but for the rest of us it's rather handy.
Perhaps you don't realize how big the U.S is and, consequently, how much travelling that we actually do just to get around in our own states. When I go to visit my family in the neighboring state of South Carolina, the distance I drive is greater than the distance from Brussels to Bonn. I work with several people for whom a 50-mile round-trip commute is standard.
My home is in Georgia, which is *only* the 24th-largest U.S. state. Comparing it just to countries in Europe, Georgia is larger than:
Greece
Bulga
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I know a lot of people who find them useful. Some have work+personal numbers, which is pretty common for freelance/contractor/consultant types who effectively run their own business and choose their own gear. Dual SIMs are also useful for people who travel a lot, because you can have one SIM on a convenient and cost-effective plan at home and another that gets better prices abroad.
Re: Dual Sims (Score:2)
Re: Dual Sims (Score:2)
Re: Dual Sims (Score:2)
I'm in the UK. I have a Three contact that gives me unlimited data in the UK, free calls & texts and 12GB of data when roaming (in selected countries) which makes my phone cheap to use when back in Ireland or on holiday.
I also have my work Vodafone data-only SIM, so I can use that if Three coverage is sketchy.
Business and personal numbers ? (Score:2)
I never understood the need for Dual SIMS. Is one for your wifes calls and one for your girlfriends?
Business number and personal number on the same device?
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In countries where some carriers have good receptions in some places and others have good receptions in others, dual SIMs make sense: the owner can use carrier A in one place, and carrier B in another, w/o opening the phone and swapping SIMs
A second use is if one has 2 numbers, but doesn't need 2 separate phones. A third would be to enable the phone to be used as a travel phone and using a foreign SIM where needed.
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One for your "home country".
And another one for the "country you are currently in"?
I live mostly in germany. I'm right now in Thailand. Having two SIM slots in my phone woukd mean: I only need one phone (recognizing caller ids, same contacts) regardless for calls from Germany to me or Thai to me, or germans calling my Thai number.
That Apple has no dual SIM support since years is a majour drawback ... unless you are Apple. Apple is probably the only company where ppl have two or three phones just to have mor
And once again (Score:2, Insightful)
And once again:
1- Someone implements a device with feature A. It's not very popular.
2- Years pass.
3- Apple (or more likely, some Apple blog) announces their next device will have feature A.
4- EVERYONE and their dog rushes to declare that this is the worst idea ever, it won't work, it was done before, Apple is in decline, blah, blah, blah.
5- Apple FINALLY releases a device with feature A. It sells like hot cakes.
6- EVERYONE (and their dog, see above) eats crow.
Been happening continuously for the past 10 year
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Shakespeare can only be truly appreciated in the original iShakespeare form.
Re:Worst idea ever (Score:1)
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Dual SIM cards are for international travel. (Score:2)
US carriers often claim they have global coverage, which often turns out to be a Byzantine system of insane surcharges, marking up a foreign carrier's service by quite a bit. You REALLY don't want most US carriers for your cell service when traveling to other countries. A dual-SIM phone solves that problem, but only if you can positively disable the unwanted SIM card to avoid the unwanted surprise surcharges. Of course, you could just turn off your beloved iPhone and use a local cheapie phone for travel,
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me too! :) This week I used the 2nd SIM slot on my Lenovo K5 for the first time. The usual phone number is still on for calls and SMS, and EUR10 bought me 10Gig to use for the week long trip. It might not be an actual saving, but it certainly gave me 100% certainty around the price for accessing the internets.
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Half the US network's phones (Verizon, Sprint) won't work at all overseas as they are frequency locked. Most Verizon phones don't have SIMs anyhow.
A world phone works in the US on T-mobile and AT&T. Single SIM works well enough, unless you are crossing constantly, then you will wear out the SIM card hardware. Bet it's rated for 10 (ballpark) insert/remove cycles.
Heh (Score:1)
They cant even make one antenna work.. what will it be with two..
Double-good (Score:2)
One sim is for your cellular carrier and the other is a direct line to the surveillance agencies and AppleCare.
Low hanging fruit? (Score:2)
So basically Apple wants to chase after emerging markets rather than do something about their quickly deteriorating product lineup.
I swear, you can practically watch in real time how the MBA is destroying an up till now highly successful company that prided itself on the quality of it's engineering.
2 antennas - no way to hold it right!? (Score:1)
Fuck everything, we're doing 5 sims (Score:3)
I'm filing the patent right now.
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No way man, only 6 sims will do! Get my patent attorney on the phone.
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Apple in India (Score:2)
So, Facebook (WhatsApp) and Google (Android) has the country divided equally among themselves.
There is no Apple ecosystem in India. All the "iDevices" are niche products used by the minority upper class/uppe
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The question one asks when he is a hardware designer all the time. We know the COGS, we know the market that wall st. wants to sell this to can barely afford it, but certain powerful investors would rather deal in volume than margin. And some of those investors are people like Foxconn (investor in two of my past three employers), who make bucks on volume more than margin and I suspect some are fronts for chinese government interests, who feel the same. Those people stand to gain from this expedition.
iPhones in India (Score:3)
iPhones have the smallest marketshare in India - equivalent to Lumias. Which is why most apps that one sees there are available on 3 platforms - Android, iOS and Windows Phone. An iPhone 6s would cost close to Rs100k, so only plutocrats have it.
Not just that, the Apple Store apps can only be bought from the US store: last that I checked, there ain't an Indian store. As a result, none of the apps on that store would be localized for India. Completely different picture w/ Lumia: a bulk of apps for Win