Leaker reveals which Pixels are vulnerable to Cellebrite phone hacking

> Notably, the Pixel 10 series is moving away from physical SIM cards.

Is it? I hadn't followed news of the new Pixels.

I don't like the idea of modernizing this and going full eSIM. It will introduce a lot of new friction, somehow I don't doubt it. Just now arrived to Mexico for a quick trip and grabbed a prepaid SIM from a 7-11 in the airport. All quick and simple. I doubt things would be so seamless when not having a SIM tray in the phone. Having to go through an official process to register a new card, ID oneself, hope to not have any incompatibility with the eSIM slots in your phone (admittedly I don't know how this works)... vs. just paying MXN100 and leave the store with a ready to use number.

eSIM can be QR code so if they wanted, Mexican vendor just pay and show QR code for you to scan.

The unfortunate problem with eSIM is that you can't swap it between phones.

eSIMs feel like a solution waiting for a problem. Consumers are happy with physical SIMs, you obtain one, you put it in your phone then you forget about it until you swap your phone.

I'm sure eSIMs are a good idea if your aim is to gain even more control over our personal devices.

You absolutely can. But it does need an internet connection for that. Which actually makes eSIM more secure than regular SIM.

You can actually get a prepaid travel eSIM before you leave on holiday.

eSIMs are nice in that you can install an app and it can activity service immediately. You don't have to go to a store or wait for a physical SIM to be mailed to you.

Also nice for people who frequent different countries, easier to switch by tapping a button in the phone than having to replace the physical SIM card each time. And no more forgetting the right SIM or not having a tiny thing to get the SIM card out in the first place (or having to borrow someone's earring).

It can be more secure, but it also feels like the kind of "improvement" that's ripe for exploitation. When you put in a step where you have to ask your service provider for permission to swap the SIM, buckle up for the inevitable development of them asking for a $5, $50 or $100 "service fee" so they consider allowing it.

And on the other hand, you enter Montenegro by car outside of touristy season and no petrol stations carry sim card then, and you have to find some kiosk in city center that does, wasting so much time in the process, relying on offline maps or spotty wi-fi.

You enter Serbia or Faroe Islands, and to get a SIM you have to find the operator booth, hope it's not in city center where parking is close to impossible, wait in a queue, they don't accept card, go find an ATM, pay extra for foreign withdrawal, pay extra ATM fees...

e-SIM just solves that, you simply buy it online before. And if you forget, I have a bit more expensive "any country" e-SIM that will allow me to do so.

Before e-SIM was a thing mobile roaming outside of EU was on the extreme expensive end. Now, I don't even get to use my e-SIM capabilities, as my network operators have pretty cheap package rates to just roam outside of EU. I wonder if widespread of e-SIM has anything to do with that.

Which are absolutely shit because your data exits out on the other side of the world with 150ms extra latency.

Getting an (e?)SIM from a local carrier is always better and often cheaper too.

The process for migrating eSIMs for me has never been easy and has always taken 1-2 days and repeated contacts with customer service agents to actually work. Compared to the 10 seconds of swapping a physical SIM. I'm sure there isn't an inherent technical reason why eSIM couldn't be just as easy if not more, but I assume it's another case of enshittification.

Couldn't they do that with physical SIM cards? On their end, record the IMEI of the first device they see connecting with a specific SIM card and then disallow connections if that SIM is used with a different IMEI.

I've been using an eSim on my iPhone and it's been wonderful because:

1. migrating between iPhones also transfers the eSim

2. if I get a tourist sim card at an airport, I don't have to worry about taking out or losing my main sim

3. the ability to have multiple sims is also ideal: I currently have phone plans in AU and SG, in addition to any tourist sim cards I pick up

Only in the US.

And you can buy an eSIM from a local carrier, which will then email you a code. It's unheard of for local carriers to mail physical SIMs to the other side of the world.

Agreed, the rest of the comments are delusional. First, you have to contact customer service, which takes a few days to get a response. Then you have to have another device to display the QR code on, which you won't have if you're travelling. They'll send you a QR code you have to scan with the device you're currently on, AND you'll have to do it without an internet connection. Meaning it just doesn't work, at all.

An offline device can take a SIM card just fine. But if you're setting up a new device, or setting up an existing device on a new country on eSim, doesn't matter, you can never connect, because you have to already have internet, to get internet.

Esim was a good idea, implemented so horribly it's worse than the 30 year old predecessor.

No, they're a huge improvement

It sounds like you’re talking about the benefits of having both? The new iPhones have only eSIM which is currently a hurdle, especially for the ”tourist SIMs”. OTOH, I’m sure Telcos will shape up their support and iron out the major bugs rather quickly precisely because of this.

eSIMs are fantastic for anyone who travels internationally.

>if I get a tourist sim card at an airport, I don't have to worry about taking out or losing my main sim

bold of you to assume we'll still have a sim card slots

Fwiw, I can't remember the last time I bought a physical sim at an airport. Airalo lets me buy an eSim at the departing airport, which means I've got cell data from the instant I arrive. They're not the only company offering this, and I'm sure I could min max and find a more cost optimized service, but it's done me well enough. Depending on the amount of international travel you do, and to where, however, US travellers may have a better time with a carrier like T-Mobile which include international data to a number of countries.

> It sounds like you’re talking about the benefits of having both?

physical sims make no contribution to any of their points.

> Consumers are happy with physical SIMs, you obtain one, you put it in your phone then you forget about it until you swap your phone.

As a consumer I was much happier with esims: I swapped provider, got the esim in the mail essentially instantly, put it in my phone, and forgot about it util I swapped phone... at which point esim transfer was part of the migration so I essentially didn't have to think about it either.

> 2. if I get a tourist sim card at an airport

That sounds like it would be a physical sim, or am I incorrect?

They probably do mean getting a tourist eSIM at the airport.

The "inherent reason" is that user freedom isn't allowed in SIM land, basically.

eSIMs are designed around "the user is the attacker". So you can't do things like transfer profiles from one eSIM to another offline, by design. What the "transfer" really does is kill the old profile and issue a new one for a new eSIM.

It still could be designed for less user friction. But the whole ordeal could be avoided if eSIM wasn't designed to be user hostile in the first place.

It's important to point out that few MVNO operators on T-Moble extend this international access.

The typically tier 2 carriers are the main ideal perfect market for eSIMs. If you want to do everything online, you really can't if it relies on a physical something. I would estimate 90% of the market is for mint mobile and consumer cellular. eSIMs are a genius move progression from the old burner phone days, from the perspective of overhead costs and flexibility.

iPhones are eSim only for a few years now.

For me, eSIM was the only solution to a very real problem: being able to use virtual carriers without mailing a physical SIM. I can pay anonymously for a regional SIM from my MVNO at an affordable price, without giving a local carrier a copy of my passport to retain indefinitely. Unfortunately, they still only resell incumbent bandwidth--but that's the reality of spectrum licensing.

I'm not sure if that's legal, but even if they did it, it's a lot more opaque. If they started doing it, many people would assume it to be a technical fault by the provider or the phone manufacturer, and the ensuing support calls and drama would probably cost way too much for this to be worth it in the first place. However, with eSIM, they get to redefine all the rules, since the customer has to learn how to use them from scratch anyway. And they also get access to nice, digital, software-driven workflows that can make the need to pay up apparent, as opposed to just randomly cutting service to the user.