Because China.

Ben Thompson (Stratechery) has been documenting for almost a decade that the biggest driver of new phone sales in China is a new form factor.

I’m sure that might be the same in other markets where an iPhone is a status symbol. It’s definitely not one in the US where 60% of phone buyers have iPhones.

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klabb3 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

> I’m sure that might be the same in other markets where an iPhone is a status symbol. It’s definitely not one in the US where 60% of phone buyers have iPhones.

It can still be a status symbol to have the newest phone. That’s imo the only reason for changing camera alignments between generations. So people (who know & care) can see that you have the newest model.

	▲	scarface_74 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		They changed the camera alignment purportedly so it would be at a distance to take better video for the Vision Pro. But how is it a status symbol in the US is $25 a month between the SE and the iPhone 17 Pro Max?

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layer8 6 days ago | parent | prev [-]

On the other hand, the iPhone Air is eSIM-only, and carriers in China generally don't support eSIM (with one exception apparently [0]).

[0] https://www.macrumors.com/2025/09/09/iphone-air-esim-china-u...

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rogerrogerr 6 days ago | parent | next [-]

Apple basically forced US carriers to get their act together when they shipped the iPhone 14 series as eSIM-only domestically. Sounds like the rest of the world is about to get kicked into gear.

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Gigachad 6 days ago | parent [-]

I’m surprised the Australian iPhone 17 still isn’t esim only considering all the carriers support it already.

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Namidairo 6 days ago | parent [-]

The major carriers perhaps, but support among the MVNOs isn't universal. Number sharing support for smart watch usage is almost non-existent among the MVNOs in Australia.

Eg. ALDI (yes, the German supermarket chain run a MVNO in Australia), have been saying esim support in the future since 2021.

	▲	scarface_74 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		In the US, the overlap between people who would buy the latest iPhones and the people who use MVNOs I would suspect is practically non existent. The MVNOs here mostly market older, cheaper iPhones.

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seanmcdirmid 6 days ago | parent | prev [-]

China Unicom was also the launch carrier for iPhone when it came out in 2007-8. It was the only carrier to support GMS channels similar to the ones in the west (China Mobile didn't, these days Apple supports chinese cell phone channels on both carriers with the same chip).