Why Do these Mobile Phone Companies Market SIM cards that are Impossible to Handle?

Yesterday someone known to me told me his difficulty in changing his smart phone. His phone uses a SIM card that is bigger in size. When he purchased a new one, he found that he cannot use his old SIM because the new phone has a slot which can use only a nano SIM. As a layman, he could not understand the differences in the smart phones that are marketed now-a-days. And not all are tech savvy youngsters!

Yet another one told another story. When he tried to insert his miniature SIM with another phone, the latter got fire! Thankfully, it did not explode! 

And I my self have been thinking of this for quite some time. I too do have problems with this SIM handling in my phones.

Mobile and tablet phones are the craze of today's world. They all have a small key electronic embedded circuit marketed separately called the SIM. This part called the SIM stands for Subscriber Identification Module. It is the one that makes the telephone network companies market their telephone services separately from that of the phone manufacturers.

So this SIM is an electronic circuit embedded within a plastic strip with some metallic ends making contact with those of the mobile phone or tablet phone circuits.

For getting to know more about this you may search the internet or click here to read one good article. For more authentic information refer Wikipedia article on SIM.

SIM cards come in three different sizes commonly called the standard SIM, micro SIM and the nano SIM. I simply do not understand why these mobile phone designers thought it necessary to have these three different physical dimensions for this embedded electronic part. Why do they have to market the same circuit in three different sizes by cutting off the plastic that surrounds the metallic circuitry that remains with the same kind of size and architecture?

More interestingly why do they have to market it by telling us those exotic names that sound pretty hi-tech! 

As a customer using cell (mobile) phone, I am quite annoyed by this liberty taken by the mobile phone designers and their regulatory authorities world wide. As such, originally appearing SIM called the standard SIM in itself is so small to be handled properly due to its small size. Yet it was comparatively easier for even old people like me to get them inserted or removed from the phone modules.

As the phones started coming with smaller slots for SIM insertion, the mobile phone handling has become a nightmare for many users.

To make the things worse, the latest smart phones now come only with nano SIM slots. If you had your earlier SIM that is bigger in size, you probably cannot use it in your new phone unless you get your extra plastic of your earlier SIM cut precisely. Of course, they have come up with new SIM plastic resizing cutters to solve this problem. However, you need to have experts to do it. 

And once cut to small mini or nano size, using your SIM in a phone that has a bigger slot would be impossible. Of course, some fellows have come up with solutions for this problem too. There are precisely cut SIM holders that are plastics for making up the lost sizes of the SIMs.

Yet I consider this phone design strategy used by cell phone manufacturers a kind of user unfriendly tactics which is ridiculous and unjustified.

As a matter of principle, it is better to reject all smart phones that come only with mini, micro or nano slots only.

The smart phone market is already sinking due to high competition. Perhaps the high competition is forcing the manufacturers to come up with various kinds of gimmicks that are making the whole smartphone evolution so complex for the common people.

When such things keep happening, it will soon loose its charm. Once the charm is gone, smart phones may not charm the customers.

And that is not good for the phone companies. It will be better for them to make and market smart phones that are durable, safe and easier for their customers to take care by themselves.

Smart phones are not inexpensive items. They are definitely expensive. True, their prices are not as high as the ones that came in the past when compared to the technological advancements that they offer now. They have also become a necessary evil for all now-a-days. But that necessity of the common man should not become a lure for exploitation. The smart phone companies should not make and market so many models in succession without ensuring their long term servicing requirements.

High competition is forcing these companies to ignore such basic factors. They come up with different models every now and then because today's young and affluent generation consider cell phones as a personal status projection gadget rather than a functional gadget. Hardly few use all the technological things packed in a smart phone. But for status, all need all technology, style and brand.

But any thing in excess and without moderation would soon become a thing of rejection or allergy later. Smart phones are no exception. High marketing strategies in a technology advancing scene might bring utter failures. 

Incidences of some reputed smart phone batteries catching fire or exploding  in the recent past are examples that only indicate the pressure under which smart phone technology designers are working. Perhaps their top management brass might be pushing them to the wall that they forget even basic common sense.

I think the top management people of all cell phone companies need to come out of their corporate pseudo shells and think and act like humans. 

Will they listen to this small piece of advice from an ordinary user?

Only time would tell.