If you’re not yet aware, iPhone 4 will take a special type of sim card different to that found in most other phones on the market. Its called a ‘micro SIM’ and it seems to be causing a lot of confusion among the Apple community.
In a nutshell a GSM sim card is a tiny plastic card that holds all your contact info and carrier account information, but with the announcement of iPad in January, Apple introduced a new kind of sim card which wasn’t exactly new to the market, but hadn’t yet been used in a device so widely adopted as the iPhone. These cards will now reportedly be available from select UK carriers next Thursday, June 24th.
The trouble is, on Tuesday of this week 600,000 of us fanatical Apple fans put in our pre-orders for iPhone 4 .. okay, well you did if you could get through the absolute mess of a pre-order system AT&T and Apple provided for US customers .. anyway, back to the point of the post – So far, only one UK carrier has announced it will be supporting micro sim, and that happens to be data-limiting @O2. Now as of yet, I haven’t been able to get my hands on a micro SIM for my unlocked iPhone 4 arriving next week, and according to my Twitter timeline, neither have you.
Sure, you could cut your own out of your existing sim card, but where would that leave you? Well, if your ever asked for your micro SIM serial number, you won’t have one.
For new customers who haven’t pre-ordered unlocked from Apple, the process to actually get a micro sim is as straight forward as it can get. This is because @O2 yesterday announced that customers would receive one of their micro sims at the time of purchasing the device on contract, on June 24th. But what about existing customers? Well according to this page on o2.co.uk, it is virtually impossible for someone who has pre-ordered the device through Apple to get their micro SIM before next Thursday.
Fancy visiting your local O2 store to wade through new and upgrading iPhone 4 customers just to get your hands on a micro sim? – No, neither do I. This has led to mass panic over among new and existing customers on how they will be able to get their hands on a micro SIM before June 24th, so their phone actually has network service when it arrives.
After making the rounds to three different stores yesterday, each gave me the same robotic response of: “check back next week, O2 doesn’t have any micro sims yet.” .. Ahem, photo above? Yes, O2 do have micro SIMs, and if anyone tells you any different they’re either lying to control stock or they’re highly misinformed.
Orange on the other hand reportedly won’t sell micro sims without the actual phone, with @tomeglenn reporting a call to his local store resulted in this.
“@RazorianFly Now I’m worried. I phoned an Orange store in desperation. They said they aint gonna sell the sims without the phone!”
So, if you’ve pre-ordered from Apple in the hope to pickup a sim-only deal from Orange, looks like you’re out of luck.
Failing visiting a store, @O2 says if you signed up to be notified of iPhone 4 news from the company they “may” send you a micro sim in the post. Well I can honestly say I signed up on June 16th and haven’t received my micro sim yet. Luckily I have someone on Twitter who is willing to help by posting one out to me, from a store in Manchester, UK who reportedly has stock – I’ll let you all know how that goes!
One other piece of info – @BudgieUK notes @GeekyGadgets is today reporting micro sims will be available to all customers, in-store next week according to an O2 representative.
I have just spoken to O2 and it looks like the Micro SIM cards will be available from next week, probably the 22nd.
[Update] @O2 just confirmed via their official Twitter account that micro sims will be available in-store for unlocked customers starting Monday!
Pre-ordered a sim free iPhone from Apple and need an O2 micro sim? Get one in store from Monday. How to swap: http://j.mp/iPhoneOnO2
[Update 2] – As noted by @DavidForster O2 is requiring Apple customers to provide an e-mail receipt as verification of pre-order before they will issue micro sims to customers, Monday.
[Update 3] Pre-registered with @O2 for iPhone 4 news using this form? According to @AlsiB O2 have already started to send out micro sims to those who pre-registered.
“Just spoke to @O2 who said they’ve started sending out micro sims to people who pre-registered for iPhone4 info on their site!”
Let us know your personal micro sim experiences in the comments below.
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