Apple Offers Nano-SIM Design Royalty-Free 113
judgecorp writes "Apple is reportedly offering its nano-SIM design free of royalties, hoping to swing the standards decision its way, for the next generation of even tinier SIM cards for phones and tablets."
Nokia has reportedly responded that they still prefer their own design.
Re:Royalty free? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Apple fragmenting the market (Score:4, Insightful)
They're not just trying to mess with everyone; the article also states "It [Apple] also asks that all other patent holders accept the same terms in accordance with the principle of reciprocity." It seems to me that Apple wants access to patents that at least one of the other players has control of, and Apple is using this 'offer' to get free licensing, with the threat of trying to kick over the sand castle if they don't get what they want.
Re:Apple fragmenting the market (Score:5, Insightful)
First, it is often an attribute of FRAND terms. Otherwise standards could not exist if a company offered their patented technology free but could get sued if they used other technology in it. Like in SDRAM, all the players agree to FRAND terms so that memory you get from one manufacturer should work with memory from another manufacturer.
Second, what "threat" are you talking about? This is a proposal for a new standard. If ETSI does not like anything in the design, they can tell Apple they are not accepting their proposal. Just a few days ago, everyone here was predicting Apple would leverage their proposal to get more in licensing money. Apple says that they will offer it royalty free and suddenly Apple has dark motives and is personified as a bully.
Re:Can someone explain this to me? (Score:4, Insightful)
With the current SIM standard, I can take the SIM out of a 10 year old phone, and pop it in to a brand new phone (except the iPhone that uses the micro-SIM "standard") and keep on talking. Obviously this is bad for business, so they want to make sure that I'll have to buy a new SIM to use my new phone. There is no other justification for it. There is no phone on the planet too small for a regular SIM, and as long as we need to hold the phones in our hands, there can't be.
As for patentable... EVERYTHING is patentable.... whether it SHOULD be is a completely different question, but one that is completely irrelevant to the companies involved.
Re:Micro SIM (Score:4, Insightful)
And the whole point to both the micro and nano SIM standards is to force you to change to a new form factor as often as possible. As long as we have to be able to hold phones in our hands, there is no reason at all not to use full size SIM cards, unless you are trying to prevent people from simply taking the SIM out of their old phone and putting it in a new one....
Re:Why (Score:5, Insightful)
We had that previously. With CDMA networks. Phones with no SIM card.
And you know what happened? The carriers got in league with each other and said "we agree not to activate phones you sold for your network, if you agree not to activate ours." The result was that you could easily switch carriers with a phone call, and keep your number, too, but you had to buy a new phone.
SIM cards get around that... They still sell phones that are "locked", but they can be unlocked. Once a phone is unlocked, it can be used with any carrier, when you put the SIM in.
*that* is why we're using SIM cards.
Why do they have to be smaller? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Apple fragmenting the market (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple's proposal is a smaller form factor, but it's electrically compatible with existing SIM (it can be inserted into a physical adapter containing no electronics and work with devices designed for micro, or mini SIM cards), making it backward compatible. It doesn't fragment the market any more than micro or mini SIM does.
The Nokia proprosal has changes to technical specs, it would actually create a new, (non-compatible???) standard.
Re:Micro SIM (Score:4, Insightful)
You do realize what a "full size SIM card" [cnet.co.uk] actually is? It's the size of a credit card. The SIM card you're referring to is already called a mini SIM card [wikipedia.org].
Technology moves forward and miniaturizes. Older stuff becomes incompatible. It's unfortunate the nano format is already being proposed before the micro-SIM is even commonplace aside from Apple gear, but micro-SIMs were standardized in late 2003, almost 9 years ago. It's hardly Apple's fault that no one else wanted to take charge and move the technology ahead. Like USB on the iMac, they're driving and popularizing an existing standard.
Re:Can someone explain this to me? (Score:2, Insightful)
Funny how every other phone manufacturer on the planet has been able to fit full size SIM cards in their phones, phones which are often no larger, and no less capable than the iPhone. If I don't know what I'm talking about, than neither to the engineers at every other cell phone company, the ones who have accidentally done something that you said there is no chance at all of doing.