终于等来国内首个不用插电话卡的iPhone，结果跑线下营业厅才能办感觉在用2005年的小灵通？
The era of "sim - free phones" seems to have arrived, but it's not quite what everyone imagined.
Last week, Apple CEO Tim Cook officially announced in a live - stream that the pure eSIM phone, iPhone Air, will be officially launched in the Chinese market on October 22. Some people excitedly predicted that "making calls with a SIM card" will become a historical memory for this generation in a dozen or so years. Just like when a post - 2015 kid asks why the gesture for "making a call" is to put a "6" shape next to the ear, and you can only sigh at the passing of time. In a few years, kids will also ask why there is a small slot with a round hole on the side of the old home phones.
Logically, the emergence of eSIM greatly saves you the trouble of getting a SIM card. In the future, when you buy a phone, after turning it on, click a couple of times on the screen, scan the code to activate the eSIM card, and you can connect to the Internet and make calls. When going to another country, you don't need to apply for a physical SIM card online anymore.
However, when the three major telecom operators successively announced the launch of eSIM services, the workers who had eagerly pre - ordered the iPhone Air were dumbfounded: A phone can be bound to a maximum of two eSIM numbers. To apply for an eSIM, you must go to an offline business hall, and it has to be in the area where the phone number is registered.
"Your iPhone Air will arrive tomorrow, but you have to go back to your hometown to apply for the eSIM."
The phone without a SIM card is finally coming
As the first pure eSIM phone available in the Chinese market, the iPhone Air has quickly gone through the ups and downs of the life cycle of a phenomenon - level electronic product within four days after its release:
On October 17, five minutes after the official pre - sale started, the first batch of iPhone Air inventory was sold out on the official website. But soon, the specific application rules for eSIMs of the three major operators caught people's attention. On social platforms, buyers were frantically discussing "how to apply for an eSIM". On October 21, Mizuho Securities of Japan predicted that due to lower - than - expected sales, Apple will reduce the production of iPhone Air by one million units. This is also related to the mediocre response in the international market. Currently, all four colors of iPhone Air in the Apple official store on JD.com show sufficient inventory.
The screen of the iPhone Air is 6.5 inches, larger than the 17 Pro. But its thickness is only 5.6 millimeters, one - third thinner than the 17 Pro, and it weighs nearly 40g less. It's "the phone with a feel closest to holding a piece of glass".
But this "thinnest iPhone in history" is actually quite a luxury. The 256GB version costs 7,999 yuan, 2,000 yuan more expensive than the regular iPhone 17. It only has one main camera lens, with a 2x zoom for taking pictures. To save internal space, the speakers originally located at the top and bottom of the phone body are now concentrated at the top, which will have a certain impact on the low - frequency sound quality of music. Due to its extreme thinness and lightness, its battery life is also inferior to that of a regular iPhone. "The battery drains at a speed similar to that of an iPhone 16 Pro that has been used for a year."
"The technological novelty of the iPhone Air terminal is limited," Nikkei News pointed out. The iPhone Air is also considered a "test product" for Apple to test the market for its upcoming foldable phone.
But you can understand the excitement about this phone. In recent years, there has been innovation in phones, but it's a common consensus that ordinary people don't feel it strongly. The screen refresh rate has increased, the number of camera lenses has increased from 2 to 4, and the phone bezel has become a few centimeters narrower. You can only find meaning in these innovations from the perspective of "engineering progress". "Nominally, there are new models every year, but the biggest change might be the new colors of phone cases each year."
Compared with these, "ultra - thin and light" and "no need to insert a SIM card" are innovation points that everyone can easily understand at a glance and have an "epoch - making" meaning.
The pure eSIM design of the iPhone Air aims to save the space for the SIM card slot inside the phone body to achieve the ultimate thinness and lightness of this phone. Since there has never been a pure eSIM phone in China before, the release of the iPhone Air in China has been delayed by one month.
For those who have been looking forward to eSIM for a long time, the physical SIM card is already a product like "a horse pulling a train", and eSIM has finally replaced the horse.
The more direct impact of eSIM on users is that in the future, when you change your phone number or telecom operator, you don't need to wait for the physical SIM card to be delivered. You just need to cancel the old eSIM and activate a new one. When traveling or on a business trip abroad, you don't need to buy a local physical SIM card in advance. You can just buy a local eSIM number on your phone to solve the problem.
Since it doesn't take up physical space in the phone, there is no strict upper limit to the number of phone cards a phone can accommodate. Phones that support eSIM usually can have 7 or 8 cards written in at the same time. When traveling to multiple countries, you don't need to frequently insert and remove phone cards. It won't be long before office workers can separate their work, life, and side - business numbers.
Taking the eSIM provider Airalo, which supports use in more than 200 countries and regions, as an example, if you want to add an Airalo eSIM card to your phone, the process is generally as follows: (1) Download the Airalo App; (2) Select and purchase an eSIM package for your country in the App; (3) Click "Install eSIM". There are three different installation methods: direct installation; installation by scanning a QR code; manual installation by entering an activation code. You can complete the installation according to the installation instructions on the App; (4) Open the "Cellular Hotspot" in your phone settings, find the eSIM phone number you just installed, and click "Turn On" to complete the activation.
The whole process is roughly as simple as installing a new App on your phone and then registering a membership account.
But when the three major domestic telecom operators finally announced the "commercial trial of eSIM phone operation services", netizens studied the eSIM rules back and forth and unfortunately concluded that currently, applying for an eSIM in China is more troublesome than getting a physical SIM card.
In an era when physical SIM cards can be applied for online, eSIM still requires "the person and the ID to be present". Whether you want to transfer your original phone number to an eSIM or apply for a new eSIM card, currently you must bring your ID card and go to an offline business hall in person. As of 1 pm on the 17th, the number of online pre - orders for China Unicom's eSIM has reached 195,000.
You thought getting an iPhone Air meant you were one step ahead of others in entering the future of mobile devices. But the application process makes you feel like you've gone back to 2005 when the mobile network was not well - developed and you had to take a two - hour bus to the city to apply for a phone card. As of the 21st, the three major operators do not support "applying for an eSIM across provinces". If you want to convert your original phone number to an eSIM, you have to go back to the area where the phone number is registered. That is to say, if you are in Beijing, you can't apply for an eSIM for a Hubei phone number. In reality, many people may have started using their current phone numbers in high school or college and no longer live in the area where the phone number is registered.
Even though both China Mobile and China Unicom have mentioned in their official announcements that "cross - province applications are allowed", in the actual application process, the customer service will clearly reject you. At 8 pm on the 21st, China Mobile's official account released an announcement that "users from other places can go to offline business halls to apply for eSIMs". But at 8 am on the 22nd, the response I got from a China Mobile customer service representative on the phone was still "The internal application documents have not been updated, and cross - province applications are still not allowed."
Image source: Xiaohongshu @duck_neck
In the past, many people would specifically find a purchasing agent to buy Hong Kong or US - version iPhones for a more complete user experience. But this won't work with the Air. The Hong Kong and other international versions of the iPhone Air cannot apply for eSIMs from the three major domestic operators. If you want to use other versions of the Air to make calls in China, you have to apply for an eSIM from another country and then activate roaming.
Tech enthusiast Alex bought a Hong Kong - version iPhone Air last month. He said that currently, many Hong Kong - version iPhone Air users choose to buy an eSIM that can be used in China on RedteaGo. It's a bit more expensive than domestic data, costing 40 yuan per month with only 10GB of data. The advantage is that the application process is fast: open the website, buy a data package, and then scan an eSIM QR code with your phone, and it's installed.
But he decided to buy a mainland - version iPhone Air. "I mainly want to experience the novel and cumbersome eSIM application process in China."
When you get to the business hall, the actual process of applying for an eSIM takes no more than 5 minutes: Hand your phone and ID card to the business hall staff, tell them your old number, and the staff will write it into the system on the computer. The physical SIM card will automatically stop working. If you are applying for a new card, the staff will operate online on your behalf and give you a QR code for the eSIM. You scan the code with your phone, and the eSIM will be automatically installed in your phone - the same as the operation process on the above - mentioned website.
"Online activation without a physical card" is the biggest advantage of eSIM, but now it's useless. And the second - biggest advantage of eSIM - multi - card standby - is also lost. Currently, the domestic - version eSIM phones "support a maximum of two eSIM cards to be activated simultaneously".
So traveling abroad with an eSIM is in a rather embarrassing situation: If you have a domestic eSIM and want to travel abroad, you still have to change an eSIM for each country, which is no different from a physical SIM card. And if you have two phone numbers in China, since an eSIM cannot be taken out and inserted like a physical SIM card and will be permanently cancelled once cancelled, it means there is no space in your phone to write in a foreign eSIM card. You can only buy roaming services from your original operator.
Since currently, eSIMs must be applied for through the operators, if you want to cancel an old eSIM, you also have to go to an offline business hall and let the staff handle it. In the era of physical SIM cards, if your old phone broke, you just needed to take out the card and insert it into a new phone. But if an eSIM phone breaks, you have to go to the business hall again to transfer the number to a new phone.
"At this stage, eSIM is like putting the SIM card ejector pin in the hands of the business hall."
Are telecom operators the biggest obstacle to eSIM promotion?
But the eSIM, which seems to have "confused the operators because it's too novel", is actually not new at all.
Smartwatches from major brands such as Apple, Xiaomi, and Oppo have long launched versions that can install eSIMs, which is what the operators call the "one - number, two - terminal" service. Smartwatches with eSIMs can answer calls and share data with the phone. Of course, the Xiaotiancai kids' smartwatch, which is also a wearable device that can make calls, still uses a physical SIM card, so it's a bit less technologically advanced and futuristic.
Image source: Xiaohongshu @cc
The smart locks of shared bikes that can be seen everywhere on the street are also equipped with eSIMs to achieve remote batch management.
According to ABI Research statistics, in 2023, the penetration rate of eSIM in smartphones was 21.3%, in wearables it was 5.2%, and in tablets it was 4.3%. Globally, eSIM has become a standard feature in new models of mainstream phone brands. According to statistics from the eSIM provider Saily, all 33 models recently released by Apple support eSIM. In the 2018 iPhone XS, Apple