Apple’s latest iPhone 17 Air take is making a clean break with the past: it’s eSIM-only everywhere. The uber-thin, 5.5 mm device completely does away with the physical SIM tray, which seems to signal Apple’s faith in the carriers of the world as well as that of the user base in that they’re able to go all digital with mobile connectivity.
It marks a significant step beyond the company’s effort, two generations of iPhone ago, to promote a U.S.-only eSIM push and redefines expectations for how people activate, switch and lock up their phones around the world.
Why Apple is betting big on eSIM
Their removing the tray opens up a visible amount of space inside a chassis this thin — space that can be traded for bigger sensors, better speakers, or more thermal material. It also eliminates a potential point of ingress, making it more durable under an IP rating, and trims a small but actual cost from the bill of materials and manufacturing complexity.
There’s a security angle, too. It becomes more difficult to swap physical SIM cards, a staple of some fraud schemes, when the phone lacks a removable card. As number porting social-engineering attacks remain an open threat, social provisioning could be combined with additional checks on identity. Regulators like the FCC and Ofcom have recommended carriers tighten port-out procedures, and eSIM makes these controls more uniform.
For user-friendliness, eSIMs are just faster. Profiles can be downloaded in minutes from a carrier’s app or a QR code, and the phone can hold multiple plans simultaneously. Apple devices normally allow you to store multiple profiles although only two can be active at any one time, which is useful for when you’re traveling often or want a work-personal split.
Carrier readiness is not in question
When Apple ditched the tray in the USA, naysayers pointed to spotty eSIM availability abroad. The landscape has changed. According to GSMA Intelligence, the momentum for eSIM, including consumer eSIM, has been growing with hundreds of mobile operators already providing eSIM support for consumers in over 100 markets. Europe and North America are pretty much covered; support in India, South East Asia, and Latin America has been building gradually through the major carriers and MVNOs.
The outlier has been China, because of decades-old regulations limiting the availability for smartphones for physical SIMS. But operator pilots have expanded and smartwatch eSIM has been prevalent for years — important ground work for smartphones. If Apple makes its move worldwide, it could hurry out policy and commercial rollouts where gaps persist, since device pressure drives network change.
Travel and dual-line gets easier
For people who travel, this trend favors eSIMs anyway. Rather than have to track a kiosk after landing, users can select and purchase local data plans from carrier apps or digital marketplaces — and activate them before takeoff. Retail eSIM providers targeting tourist visas have proliferated, and GSMA consumer surveys identify travel as a leading eSIM application.
Dual-line users benefit as well. With the ability to store multiple profiles, toggling between your corporate plan and personal number is a toggle, not a tray tool. Lines can now be remotely provisioned and decommissioned by enterprise mobility teams with EMM, offering easier compliance and cost control.
The thin-phone calculus of the tray delete
At 5.5 mm, the iPhone 17 Air’s profile is engineering-first minimalism. Every cubic millimeter counts in a design like this: The SIM slot, the gasket, the reader stack take up space, the cutout loss strength (and causes the shell to creak), and an opening would make it much more difficult to achieve water resistance. It’s unclear what Apple is shifting that volume toward by removing the assembly, presumably a place inside the camera stack for stabilization, battery package efficiency, or squeezing more thermal envelope into a frame that is already cut flat around the edges in terms of thermal envelope to begin with.
There’s also a forward-looking angle. The industry is moving to iSIM, which bakes the subscriber credentials into the chipset’s secure enclave. eSIM-only hardware helps to ease the way for fully digital provisioning before that next stage arrives.
What buyers should do before taking the plunge
Ensure your carrier supports consumer eSIM at the plan tier you’re interested in (generally, they do, but some prepaid plans and legacy business accounts require a brief plan change). If you depend on SMS for one-time passwords for things like banking or messaging, verify how numbers are moved around so that codes continue to flow during activation.
If you are coming from a physical SIM, use your carrier’s “convert to eSIM” flow in advance, where it’s available. Get ready with the carrier app, have Wi‑Fi available for activation, and keep any QR codes it gives you. For dual lines, remove profile labels (e.g., “Work,” “Travel EU”) to avoid sharing data and voice default preferences.
A line in the sand of the SIM card era
Apple’s global eSIM-only shift with the iPhone 17 Air doesn’t just trim a few millimeters—it’s the standard for premium phones. Now that carrier support is ubiquitous and digital onboarding is pretty much expected, that plastic card that represented mobile for more than a century is befittingly on its way out.
