As many of you know, the iPhone Air is the first-ever iPhone sold as an eSIM-only version all over the globe. Well, someone didn’t like that and actually decided to mod the iPhone Air to give it a physical SIM slot.
Custom mod adds a physical SIM card slot to the Apple iPhone Air
The report comes from China, and actually shows the modded Apple iPhone Air with a physical SIM slot right next to the USB-C port. This was allegedly done by an electronics store based in the Shenzhen Huaqiangbei market.
So, how easy was this? Well, not as easy as you may think. The project actually required replacing the iPhone Air’s Taptic Engine vibration motor. The person who did this used a much smaller vibration motor.
Removing the original Taptic Engine vibration motor provided enough space for a physical SIM tray to fit, and it was also possible to connect it and make it fully functional.
The phone remained fully functional
The images of this project are shown below this paragraph. One of the images shows a China Telecom SIM card, while the other one shows the phone making a call. This iPhone Air is fully functional and can access 5G mobile data as well. It is also noted that it retained its IP68 ingress protection.
As you know, the Apple iPhone 17 series is eSIM only in the US, but in Europe, for example, those devices do include physical SIM card slots. The iPhone Air is the only device that is eSIM only globally.
The tradeoff is a weaker vibration motor
It seems like Apple could have offered a physical SIM card inside the phone without much problem, except for the fact that the vibration motor would suffer. That’s the compromise here. Considering that we didn’t use this modded device, we cannot tell how inferior the smaller vibration motor, of course. Many people would probably agree to that trade-off to get a physical SIM card slot, though.
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