iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro Feature Dual eSIM Support

Apple introduced eSIM support on iPhone with iPhone XR and iPhone XS in 2018. However, while you can use a regular SIM and an eSIM simultaneously, there was no way to use two eSIMs simultaneously -- until now. iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro feature dual eSIM support for the first time. From a report: The new capability was confirmed by Apple on the iPhone 13 specs webpage. There, Apple says that iPhone 13 models support Dual SIM using both regular SIM and eSIM and "Dual eSIM," as the company calls it. If you check the webpage of the iPhone 12 or previous generations, only combined Dual SIM support is mentioned. These are the SIM support specifications for iPhone 13 mini, iPhone 13, iPhone 13 Pro, and iPhone 13 Pro Max: Dual SIM (nanoâ'SIM and eSIM), and dual eSIM support. During the event, Apple also mentioned that iPhone 13 models have support for more 5G bands, which should enable the new faster network in more countries.

Dual SIM

[fermion]

My understanding is that dual SIM means that there is one physical card and then the eSIM. The question is then can this phone have three numbers? Or does the two eSIM take over for the nano slot? The specs on phones are always very ambiguous on this. Of course in the US if you buy an iPhone connected to a carrier the eSUM will be useless.

Re:

[SuperKendall]

Of course in the US if you buy an iPhone connected to a carrier the eSUM will be useless.

Stuff like this is why I always buy the phone for any carrier, and just activate it myself. It costs exactly the same (well apart from your time).

Re:Dual SIM

[Brymouse]

Stuff like this is why I always buy the phone for any carrier, and just activate it myself. It costs exactly the same (well apart from your time).

Have you ever tried to setup eSIM with a US carrier? It's Kafkaesque.

First you will be told "no we don't support that"

Then "why would you want to do that, physical SIM is easier".
I want to keep the physical slot open for travel when I go out side of the USA
"OK but just enable roaming at our Insane 25USD/MB and .50/SMS data rates!"
Ok, that's stupid, I'd just get a local SIM.
"use the eSIM for that!"
No, if it's this hard to get get eSIM setup with a carrier where I speak the language, it's impossible where I don't.

So this continues back and forth and I get transferred yet again, and am told "eSIM isn't supported by Verizon".

Recently I upgraded my iPhone 8 to a newer device. It took 4 hours on the phone (3-7:30pm) with Verizon to get them to issue the right QR code to provision the new device. Each time they would send a code and you'd have to try and it wouldn't work. Finally I was able to figure out that even though I'd given them my new IMEI every single time they reset the code, they still were using the old IMEI!

No way in fuck I want multiple eSIM's; physical devices are much easier.

Re:

[DamnOregonian]

I've had mixed results.
My Apple watch was a fucking nightmare- much like you describe.
My iPhone was a flat out breeze. 10 minutes.

Both with AT&T.

Re:

[EvilSS]

Man AT&T screwed my watch up so bad it wasn't funny. It didn't activate out of the box so I called them. The agent on the phone, unbeknownst to me, set the watch up as a new line of service by itself, so first bill I get instead of $10 for the watch it's almost $90. Luckily my local AT&T store is a corporate store and one of the guys there was able to sort it out, although it took him almost an hour on the phone with corporate to do it.

My phones I just buy unlocked and swap the SIM. Cuts AT&T

Re:

[MikeMo]

I think your problem is Verizon, not the eSim.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re: Dual SIM

[registrations_suck]

That was my experience when e-sim just came out. But a couple of years later, it was painless.

Verizon

Re:

[phalse phace]

My understanding is that dual SIM means that there is one physical card and then the eSIM. The question is then can this phone have three numbers? Or does the two eSIM take over for the nano slot?

It's the latter.

You can have either a dual SIM set up (one physical nano SIM and one eSIM) or a dual eSIM set up (two eSIMs and no physical SIM).

Re: Dual SIM

[registrations_suck]

I dunno, but dual e-sim support is a feature that would make me more likely to buy the phone than anything they actually talked about in their presentation. I can't believe they didn't even mention it.

Re: Dual SIM

[registrations_suck]

Uh, no it isn't.

I have Verizon...and I'm on with them via an e-sim. I use the physical sim slot for whatever else, including foreign carriers when I am overseas.

Why only 2?

[dgatwood]

The only reason for special hardware for the SIM card is so they can hide the keys from the user. With the secure enclave, I don't understand why this isn't 100% software by now, with the baseband just sending the data through the lowest-power core on the CPU or whatever, and getting the crypto done using the enclave processor. In principle, there shouldn't even be a limit to the number of "eSIM cards" that a device supports, at least up to the capacity of the secure enclave (at 256 to 512 bits per SIM key pair, that would allow 65536–131072 eSIM cards if the secure enclave were otherwise empty).

So why only 2? Seems like an unnecessary restriction. Maybe after Apple starts building their own LTE radios, things will get better.

Re:

[93 Escort Wagon]

"no one will ever need more that 64k eSIMs" - Bill Gates

There are now a couple work-arounds for people who do need more than that. But, unfortunately extended eSIMs are not compatible with expanded eSIMs.

Re:

[CaptQuark]

But, unfortunately extended eSIMs are not compatible with expanded eSIMs.

That reminds me of the additional memory in the early PCs. You had to choose between extended memory or expanded memory, but not both. EMS vs XMS [iu.edu]

Re:

[fph il quozientatore]

...that was the joke?

Re:

[93 Escort Wagon]

People on Slashdot apparently are too young for the reference - which surprises me.

Re:

[DamnOregonian]

The problem of course being that with expanded eSIMs, is that nobody really has an expanded eSIM, they're just using the expanded eSIM API as a shitty hack for working with extended eSIMs, and switch banks of eSIMs is a pain in the ass.

Re:

[Krishnoid]

Maybe the carriers weren't that happy about multiple SIM cards in one phone in the first place, since it means they couldn't collect roaming fees, and pushed back on even two SIMs in one phone?

Re:

[thegarbz]

Multiple SIMs in phones have existed for as long as phones themselves. They were very popular long before smartphones.

Re:

[EvilSS]

They were very popular long before smartphones.

Not in the US. They were pretty rare over here. You could find them but the selection was slim if you didn't want to try to import one.

Re:

[fermion]

Some people do reside in more than one country. I understand that many in the US, for legal or financial reasons, are not allowed or able to leave the country, but that is not everyone. For people who are free to travel, and travel often to the same place, having a fixed number is useful. As many less developed countries do not have Esim, using esim in the US and a physical card elsewhere is the norm.

Re:

[Kejiro]

Not only that, but a lot of people, at least around here use one sim for phone, and another for data because they have better plans or something like that.
There are plenty of use-cases where a dual sim is useful (I have even had need for more than that myself, quad-sim phones are _hard_ to find).

Re:

[Powercntrl]

In the USA, all three major carriers have similar plans. There'd be nothing to be gained by subscribing to more than one, unless you hated money I suppose. That's why the multi-SIM phone thing never really caught on here.

Re:

[tlhIngan]

The modem chip only supports 2, most likely.

The iPhone, unlike Qualcomm chips, consists of separate application and modem processors - the application one running all the stuff you see, the modem processor running the software needed to talk to the cell network. Traditionally, this meant using a modem chip from Infineon (then Intel, then Apple), or Qualcomm.

Qualcomm SoCs contain the modem processor on the main SoC chip itself, and thus boot it after the main processor boots (there are lots of daemons runnin

Re:Why only 2?

[DamnOregonian]

Qualcomm SoCs contain the modem processor on the main SoC chip itself, and thus boot it after the main processor boots (there are lots of daemons running on Linux o manage both firmware loading and data storage for the modem processor). For these , I suspect a modem tweak would allow the SIM to be simulated by the main processor code.

Backwards, actually.
The baseband processor is responsible for bootstrapping the application processor. The baseband processor is highly protected, and the application processor can only interact with it via mailboxes, while the baseband processor can touch all of main memory.

What you describe is how external basebands work- they're managed by the application processor.

Re:

[Coopjust]

I haven't used eSIM on an iPhone yet myself, but I hear that the actual limit of eSIMs is five. It's just that only two can be in active use at any given time, plus some other restrictions (only one cellular data network at any given time, and if the first eSIM is from a CDMA carrier, the second eSIM can't be.)

And yeah - I'd imagine that this is likely more with limitations on how the SIM standard works interacts with the cellular modem and not an artificial limitation by Apple or the carriers. It may al