Last year, when Apple launched its iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Pro, its presentation for U.S. customers stated the physical SIM card tray would be eliminated, favouring eSIM instead.
But in Canada at the time, iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Pro models were showing on Apple’s website to still have the traditional physical SIM card tray. Why? Because Canada is a bit slow when it comes to adopting the latest technology, with most carriers at the time not even adopting eSIM yet.
Times have changed but for 2023, the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro lineup in Canada still retains the physical SIM card tray, as per Apple’s website again.
The new iPhone 15 series lineup supports Dual SIM (nano SIM and eSIM) and Dual eSIM support. This allows you to have a SIM card with one carrier and an eSIM with another carrier at the same time. This is handy when travelling if you’re trying to get lower roaming rates that can be available with eSIM for data.
Canada is not ready to ditch the SIM card tray just yet. We have a feeling it’s going to take some years for the SIM tray to disappear here.
You can pre-order the iPhone 15 series lineup this Friday at 5am PDT/8am EDT. They will launch one week later on September 22, 2023.
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I have been using an eSim for cellular service here for almost a year. Was a simple process to switch. But ok with still having a physical SIM tray. I have an international physical SIM card. Would have been a bit of a hassle to deal with no SIM tray.
I didn’t know there were such a thing as an “international SIM card”… Can you point me in the right direction for info
A SIM that is not from around these parts.
people like you needed more attention growing up
I use Keepgo. It’s a data only card though. U can’t use it for regular cellular calls. Supported in many countries.
We get a SIM tray, but still no mmWave!
Even thought mmWave is offering blazing speeds, it’s hard to implement: “Transmissions in mmWave spectrum can’t travel more than a few thousand feet, and often cannot penetrate glass or trees.” and “Ookla’s findings in 2021 showed that the average mobile user in the US connected to a mmWave 5G network less than 1% of the time.”
So before it becomes widely spread in Canada, there’s still a lot of work to do. So I’m not surprised that Apple hasn’t included a mmWave modem in the Canadian version of its iPhone… Maybe for the 16 or 17
Yeah, it’d be nice to get that in… like it would feel good to know that your phone will support it eventually but in real life is there even an auction date for mmWave in Canada yet? I think they’re still doing more mid-band first.
So mmWave may not be deployed in Canada for the lifetime of the device at all (I guess assuming you’re an early adopter eh?)
Why would you want mmWave ? No carrier has deployed or plan to deploy mmWave in Canada
“You can pre-order the iPhone 15 series lineup this Friday at 5am PDT/8am EDT”
It’s interesting that this year they seem to favour eastern part of America instead of PDT for ordering
It has been like that for at last 4 years.