Steve Jobs’s vision was that the iPhone would be a seamless device, and on his head did not include a slot for SIM cards.
“Father of the iPod” Tony Fadell, one of the most influential members of the original iPod and iPhone design teams, has revealed more details about the development of the original iPhone in a interview with The Computer History Museum.
In the interview, Fadell revealed that Jobs wanted the iPhone to have a seamless design and decided to eliminate the SIM card slot in an early prototype.
This would be possible thanks to the CDMA cellular technology, which allowed phones to connect to cell towers without the need for a SIM card. The then CEO believed that this would make the SIM trayless design possible.
The former Apple engineer recalled that he had to use existing market data to demonstrate to the co-founder of Apple that the resulting CDMA-based design would have low adoption. The CDMA standard was not as widespread as the competing GSM standard.
Current rumors suggest that the next “iPhone 15” could do without the SIM card slot, so Jobs’ vision could come true.
