Is Apple Looking to Forego Swappable SIM Cards?

As has been proven many times over the years, Apple is a company that wants to be the best at what it does. One of its major focuses is integration, and because of such keen attention to that, we’ve seen some of the smallest digital products on the market come straight out of Cupterino. Take the latest MacBook Air, for example, which is so thin, you could hide it under a magazine.

As cool as some of the products to come from Apple are, there are occasions when the intent of the company isn’t so clear. As just one example, though its iTunes Apps store is brilliant in many ways, we still see news of rejected applications that seem to be pushed aside for no logical reason. While some other companies are welcoming of the idea of a truly open system, that’s never something Apple strives for.

Tech site GigaOM has uncovered some information that’s quite difficult to decipher, because according to some, it looks like Apple’s planning to limit user ability even further, while others believe there are perfectly legitimate uses for it. In gist, the new rumored technology is an integrated and reprogrammable SIM card, which by the sounds of things, is not user-replaceable.

The idea is for the most part simple. Rather than have actual cards to deal with, carriers could beam the correct information to your internal SIM card, and you’d be good to go. As it is, it’s hard to speculate about all of the downsides, because not all of the details are known. But generally speaking, actual SIM cards are good for the consumer, because it allows you to swap phones if you need to, or change carriers on the fly.

If Apple integrates a feature into its iPhone that allows multiple SIM profiles, that’d be a good thing, but then that raises major security issues. But if that functionality doesn’t exist, and the SIM card is indeed non-removable, then it would only complicate things. Another rather pressing issue is that it seems Apple is vying for even further iTunes integration, so with this mechanic, you might need to hook your phone up to your PC and have iTunes overwrite the SIM card.

Though littered with potential issues, this is an intriguing idea. I can’t help but wish this was more of an open standard, though, and not one that Apple has a sole hand in. This sounds like something that could have huge potential for cell phone users worldwide, but of course, Apple itself isn’t too keen on creating technologies that aren’t going to explicitly further its own product-lines.

We’re surely still a while away from seeing anything here come to fruition, but it’s still worth keeping an eye out for. Given Apple’s constant success of implementing interesting and unique technologies, this is one that has a real chance of happening.

It’s rumored that Apple and Gemalto have created a SIM card, which is typically a chip that carries subscriber identification information for the carriers, that will be integrated into the iPhone itself. Then customers will then be able to choose their carrier at time of purchase at the Apple web site or retail store, or buy the phone and get their handset up and running through a download at the App Store as opposed to visiting a carrier store or calling the carrier. Either way, it reduces the role of the carrier in the iPhone purchase. Gemalto and Apple have not responded to requests for comment. I’m also waiting to hear back from other sources to get more details.