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:Why (Score:4, Informative)
Apple has a huge LTE patent portfolio... (Score:5, Informative)
acquired from Nortel for $4.5 Billion, so I'm not sure what you are talking about when you say that Apple has no patents on traditional cellular functionality.
Also, they are offering their patents in this case royalty-free, so I'm not sure what there is here to hang them by.
Re:Royalty free? (Score:4, Informative)
That's pretty small as it is, going smaller so soon seems a bit unnecessary?
You'd think so, wouldn't you? But if you take apart an iPhone, there's really not much left once you've removed the display and battery. The micro SIM slot takes up a surprising proportion of the space on the board; I can see how making it slightly smaller would increase space for the battery.
Re:Royalty free? (Score:4, Informative)
Poor picture.
Try this one: http://tectrack.blogspot.com/2011/11/forget-micro-sim-nano-sim-will-be.html [blogspot.com]
or this one http://www.ixwebhosting.mobi/giesecke-devrient-launch-worlds-first-nano-sim-card-micro-sim-card-than-the-small-13/ [ixwebhosting.mobi]
Re:Royalty free? (Score:2, Informative)
Nano sim is thinner and 12mm X 9mm.
Now tell me with a straight face that adding the difference between a Micro sim and a Nano Sim will make any significant difference in battery size.
OK, I'll tell you with a straight face: it can. It's easy to see if you look at pictures of the current iPhone 4S motherboard and battery:
http://guide-images.ifixit.net/igi/dCidpYqpnbZ2JiDS.huge
http://guide-images.ifixit.net/igi/ADhhSUuY2cTIiuba.huge
Note how the width of the main section of the motherboard defines how much of the width of the phone is left for battery to fill. Make the board narrower, more battery. Note how the micro SIM socket is the largest component, and the motherboard can't get any narrower unless the size of the SIM socket is reduced.
(Now, you might also say the A5 chip would have to be narrower, and that's probably true, but the thing is -- Apple controls the A5's package design. If they want to make it more rectangular, they can. And reducing the size of a SIM card in both X and Y dimensions would give them room to do that.)
I'll also tell you another thing with a straight face: even if you were right about SIM card size being meaningless on its own, you'd still be an idiot. Nobody tries to improve battery capacity by addressing just one issue. They're constantly trying to miniaturize everything. If every component's size is cut, it adds up to something real in the end (especially size changes which allow more flexibility in how to arrange other components).
SIM cards are getting attention because their size is relatively low-hanging fruit. Most of the volume of a SIM card has always been packaging and the connector contacts. The active circuitry is very small (it's just a low capacity serial EEPROM chip). This is why there were stories a while back about Apple trying to push carriers into replacing the physical SIM with a blob of data stored in the phone's main flash storage. It's one of the largest non-battery internal components, and it does so little, so of course engineers want to reduce its size (or eliminate it).
Re:Ok, so... (Score:4, Informative)
A better standard that works for them.
It's not the first time they've done this - they did it with Mini-Displayport too, and now you see those all over the place, and it works for Apple because they really like small and simple connectors.