“Data roaming was once one of the great pain points of traveling. Slowly, but surely, it is easing up—and perhaps going away all together,” Nikki Ekstein reports for Travel & Leisure. “A short history, for the uninitiated: first, the EU proposed legislature to end roaming on the European continent by 2017 (a bill that was just approved yesterday). Then T-Mobile made it free to roam in 120-plus countries (sluggish network speeds be damned).”
“A third development was the perhaps quietest — Apple launched a technology called Apple SIM poised to instantly connect travelers with local data networks the second they touched ground in an international country,” Ekstein reports. “The only catch? They didn’t have any significant telecom partners available when the technology deployed, so the development flew largely under the radar.”
“Until today, that is. This morning, Apple and GigSky teamed up to offer travelers the ability to instantly connect to a local data network in more than 90 countries and territories upon touchdown — no need to visit a kiosk, talk to a service agent, or really, do anything at all,” Ekstein reports. “Instead, iPads with Apple SIM cards will automatically offer the option to sign up for a data plans as soon as a local network is in reach… For now, the technology is limited to iPad—AppleSIM has been coming pre-installed on iPad Air 2 and iPad mini 3 models with WiFi + Cellular capability (and have been since that model debuted last year). ”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: iPad-only, for now. Please let it come to the iPhone!
The big question is will those data connections allow OTT communications such as VoIP and Face Time calling?
Well, DavGreg, while most Apple users are looking forward to iPad worldwide data, you have been banned from using this data.
You are not the only one. Almost everyone at Amazon is in the same boat.
But if you select AT&T with an Apple SIM, AT&T destroys your ability to change carriers later with that Apple SIM. The LOCK OUT the other carrier options that were at first presented by the Apple SIM.😖