AT&T locks Apple SIM cards that are activated on their network

Apple launched a very interesting new product during their recent iPad press event, although they failed to actually mention it at the conference. The product in question is the Apple SIM, a universal SIM card that works with a number of different carriers. What’s interesting about it is that it allows its users to select their carrier of choice by picking it from a list. This eliminates the inconvenience of switching SIM cards every time you want to use a device on a different network. The Apple SIM currently supports Sprint, T-Mobile and AT&T, and rumor has it that Apple is working on adding Verizon as well to this list.

Needless to say, this is a great product for consumers and it’s pretty safe to assume that the Apple SIM card will become quite popular in the near future. However, carriers are understandably not so thrilled with it seeing as how it has the potential to slow down their business. AT&T in particular is completely against this concept and is even locking the Apple SIM if you activate it on their network according to multiple user reports. The users are saying that when they activated the card on the carrier’s network it stopped working as intended and they were no longer able to switch to another network.

In other words if you’ve activated the Apple SIM on AT&T, you’ll unfortunately need to purchase another card if you plan on switching to a different network. Apple has confirmed that this is indeed the case, but are not offering any solutions at the moment. Granted, their hands are tied as the decision to allow it to work lies entirely with the carrier. An AT&T spokesman said that this is simply the way they want to do things and didn’t offer any further details when asked why they’re locking the Apple SIM.