In 2010, Apple tried to bulldoze an embedded SIM card into the industry before it was ready. The company was forced to retreat under intense fire from European MNOs, which threatened to refuse to sell an iPhone with a SIM card that Apple could provision remotely. This would have allowed the user to choose an operator and would have removed the MNO’s control over its most important weapon, its own SIM card. In 2016, times have changed. Operators accept that embedded SIMs will be essential to make it workable to support huge numbers of connected devices and have signed up for the GSMA’s eSIM specifications; users are demanding greater flexibility in how they choose and swap carriers. And Apple has…