Apple filed with the State Intellectual Property Office of China documents that describe a dual-SIM feature. The Cupertino-based tech giant submitted the documents in March 2016 and it was published in September with Li Su, principal architect for cellular software, as the inventor.
Li Su and two other wireless cellular engineers of Apple, Guojie Dong and Ming Hu, were listed on the patent as inventors of the dual-SIM card technology in its similar application in the U.S. which was approved earlier the second week of December, Fortune reports. The dual SIM would allow the users to have different wireless services, often one for personal use and the other for business.
Popular In Asia
Other phone brands have been offering the dual-SIM feature for a few years now. It is popular in Asian countries such as China and India. Apple appears to be addressing the issue of limiting its ability to increase sales in these nations if it does not include a dual-SIM feature on its iPhones.
However, outside the two Asian giants, the dual-SIM may not be a viable option because it would risk the mechanism which operators see the locked iPhone with contract, Jessie Ding, Canalys analyst, said. The possible introduction of a dual-SIM option in the two countries could be to reverse the slump in sales by 30 percent as local prefer made-in-China brands such as Vivo and Oppo with those features.
But filing of a patent may not necessarily translate into these inventions being included in future iPhone models. Before the launch of the iPhone 7, there were leaks of photos that support dual-SIM cards.
SIM Priority
The patent application says it would use two separate antennas. It would be the phone that would determine SIM priority. A SIM card actively used in a phone call gets priority over the other SIM card which uses data, according to Mybroadband. However, one impact of a dual-SIM on an iPhone is it would drain the gadget’s battery faster since iPhone batteries are one of the least powerful.
