Today, Dan Frommer wrote a piece about the new SIM in the newly announced iPad Air 2 (and other iPads) and why it was disruptive. This is quite a big deal. 

It was almost four years ago when Stacey Higginbotham reported that Apple was working on a new SIM that would allow its iPad customers to seamlessly pick between various cell phone carriers. In a subsequent piece, European economist and policy expert Rudolf van der Berg (now with OECD) explained why this new SIM card (co-developed with Gemlato) was a big deal and could turn Apple into a new kind of variation of MVNO. Rudolf wrote: 

If I had to advise Apple, it wouldn’t be to use a fancy SIM card that can be remotely changed, but instead to use an Apple-proprietary SIM card that contains no changeable data and is fully controlled by Apple. Then, the consumer could buy access to mobile networks throughout the world either through post-paid or pre-paid options offered by Apple. Apple would manage the subscriptions and authenticate the users on the correct networks. The user could switch mobile networks but have all of it managed by Apple.

You should read Rudolf’s post to get a deeper explanation that what Quartz offers. Holland became the first country to offer carrier agnostic SIM card. The implications of the carrier antagonistic SIM are much more profound when you start to think about our data plans, connected car and other connected devices.