I am quite annoyed by the people who don't see the issue with eSim because "they never had an issue" with it. It's like having one murder down your block and stating that you don't see the issue because nobody attempted to murder you so far. ESim are backed up as part of iCloud backups, had one dodgy carrier in Europe (Lyca) who never activated my eSim so I switched back to a new carrier but I had to get a transfer authorization from Lyca. Guess what , since I was no longer a customer I was sent to hell by their customer support. Best joke that it was impossible to remove on my iPhone. It was part of the backup, a reset attempt did not solve it so I had to drive 200km to an Apple store to get a hard reset and the Apple genius advising me against restoring my data "otherwise it would retrieve the faulty ESIM back in your phone" !!!

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pxeboot 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> ESim are backed up as part of iCloud backups

You can’t actually backup an eSIM. If you could, they would be easy to clone. I know Apple uses that terminology, but that isn’t what is happening in the background. Same with transferring an eSIM. A new one is issued each time.

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flowerthoughts 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Isn't that just semantics? It's tied to the same phone number, and I assume the generation of a new eSIM invalidates any old one (as happens with my carrier.) It's essentially backed up, even if it's just a (carrier, number) pair. If the Lyca account is trashed, the rest is just an implementation detail.

	▲	a456463 a minute ago \| parent \| next [-]
		NO. IT IS NOT. If it is a backup, then you should be able to restore it verbatim without involving a middle man 3rd party
	▲	ValentineC 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		But it's not, because some carriers explicitly don't allow eSIM transfers, or reuse of the initial QR code, or even the forced generation of a new eSIM without either customer support manually revoking the previous one, or deleting it yourself from the old device. I think the problem here is: there's no consistent regulation on how a replacement eSIM can be provisioned on a new device.
	▲	gruez 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		>the rest is just an implementation detail. Is the fact that you don't actually own a game you bought on steam, or a movie you bought on itunes (eg. if either of them went under, or you got banned) also "just semantics" and "implementation detail"?

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thiht 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> It's like having one murder down your block and stating that you don't see the issue because nobody attempted to murder you so far

Yeah over exaggerations are probably not helping the cause. I’ll stick with eSim

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x0x0 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I occasionally buy travel data, and 3 of probably 8-ish instances had me on the phone with support for at least 20 minutes (and once an hour) to make an esim work. Perhaps the problem is android. But I've never had that experience with a physical sim. :shrug:

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onesociety2022 3 hours ago | parent [-]

I have used the AirAlo app to buy data-only eSIMs for so many international trips. It works well but I have only tried it on iPhones.

	▲	andrewinardeer 23 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Did this yesterday on Android when arriving into Indonesia. While my wife waited in immigration, I used the Smart Gates. I downloaded an eSim via Airalo in just 90 seconds, providing me with enough data to send her a "good luck" message and let her know I'd see her at the hotel if she cleared immigration.

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expedition32 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

So don't do business with dodgy telcos and stick to the big ones?

And as a bonus the established players even have their own stores in every mall!

	▲	pwdisswordfishy an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Yay for oligopolies!

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pkulak 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Eh, it's more like: a dog pooped on a lawn down my block, but it hasn't happened to me yet, so I'm not too worked up about it.

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spwa4 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Given that this is a flag that the carrier has to explicitly set on the eSIM, you should blame the carriers that do this.

To be completely honest, if a hard reset removes the profile it should get reinstalled, it is actually not okay that a hard reset works.

Why is it like this? This is the way subsidized phones without physical sim work.

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renewiltord 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Yeah, eSIMs are built for high trust locations. I just use Google Fi and they’re pretty decent about it all. This whole “switching a carrier” business is kind of pointless busywork I don’t do any more.

	▲	starkparker 32 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Odd how it works out, but my work Pixel 8 on Google Fi forgets its eSIM about once every three Android updates. Usually takes 15 minutes to an hour to work itself out, with no indication as to what happened or why. Turned me off completely from eSIM-only devicess and Google Fi for personal use. Hell, as I write this my on-call phone just notified me that its eSIM isn't valid. Good thing I'm not on call yet!