With the steep price tag of $799 for the new iPhone 14, there is a new hidden cost added. There will no longer be a sim card tray in iPhone 14 in the United States.
This may not affect Americans that don’t travel overseas frequently, but it will be an issue for frequent international travelers. Henceforward iPhone 14 users in the USA will have to depend completely on a fixed eSim attached to the motherboard of the phone. This e-Sim cannot be physically removed from the phone easily.
For most American travelers visiting other countries, getting a local sim has always been the cheap and easy way of evading the high roaming charges. It is possible that going forward when Americans travel internationally there will be no option but to pay the high roaming charges. This is because it won’t be possible to buy eSim access for every carrier in every country.
It will also be a headache for people who want to upgrade to the new iPhone 14 model. Simply transferring the old sim from the old phone to the new one won’t be an option. Everyone will need to complete an enrollment process or inform the sim carrier company before to register the new e-Sim.
Apple has been biased towards eSim since the introduction of the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max in 2018. They have also used the same technology for the Apple Watch and other Apple devices.
Some people criticized the company for slyly removing the headphone jack, but soon people will have a new complaint about another hidden cost. Apple continues to support the narrative that the changes were made to make the phones sleeker and slimmer.
