iPhone Air launch delayed in China over eSIM issues

The iPhone Air is excessively slim for a SIM.

Apple has postponed preorders of the iPhone Air successful mainland China, which were owed to unfastened today, with regulatory issues astir eSIM astir surely to blame.

The Chinese store leafage for the super-slim iPhone says that “release accusation volition beryllium updated later” (translated from Chinese). Apple had originally announced that the Air would spell connected preorder successful China astatine the same clip arsenic successful the US, 8AM ET today, with afloat availability from September 19th. Its different 3 caller iPhones — the 17, 17 Pro, and 17 Pro Max — are each disposable to preorder now, and vessel from adjacent week.

The contented is astir apt Apple’s determination to marque the Air eSIM-only worldwide. eSIM has ne'er been wide disposable successful mainland China, and phones manufactured for the section marketplace inactive don’t see enactment (which has tripped maine up a fewer times erstwhile I’ve gone traveling successful Europe with a reappraisal portion of a Chinese phone!). None of Apple’s erstwhile iPhone enactment eSIM successful China, nor bash immoderate of the 3 iPhone 17 models.

Earlier this week Apple’s enactment leafage for eSIM successful China declared that “China Unicom is the lone supported eSIM bearer for iPhone.” That leafage has now been updated, and says that “pending regulatory approval” each 3 of the country’s state-owned main carriers volition connection eSIM, including China Mobile and China Telecom.

The South China Morning Post reports that Apple has told Chinese media that it is “working intimately with regulatory authorities to bring [the iPhone Air] to China arsenic soon arsenic possible.”