Michal Marek Server & Hosting Business Insider brought an interesting report in which he claims that Apple plans to become a virtual operator. He reportedly wants to work in the United States and Europe. Sources familiar with the situation told this server that Apple is testing the new feature on the territory of the United States, but is already conducting negotiations with European operators.
Apple should be a classic virtual operator that will buy part of their network capacity from traditional mobile operators and then offer mobile services directly to customers. The user of a special Apple SIM will pay directly to Apple for his messages, calls and data, and the advantage for him, among other things, will be that his phone will switch between the networks of several different operators and will always have the best possible signal.
But let's leave it at that the already introduced Apple SIM, Apple's efforts in this area are said to be at a very early stage. Apple is said to be looking ahead, so it could be more than five years before the service is fully launched, and it's even possible that the company's plans will never materialize and remain only in testing. In addition, negotiations between Apple and carriers are nothing new, according to the sources, and the California firm's plans to become a virtual operator are supposed to be an open secret among telecommunications companies.
After all, competitor Google also showed similar efforts as Apple, which already rebuilt its own project with the name a year ago Project Fi. As part of it, Google has become a virtual operator, although so far only to a very limited extent. Telecommunications services within the framework of this project can be used only by American users of the Nexus 6 phone. However, it can be seen that technology companies see a certain potential in offering telecommunications services.
[to action=”update” date=”4. 8. 2015 19.40″/]It seems that resources Business Insider they weren't very accurate, at least according to Apple's official response to the aforementioned report Issued: "We have not discussed nor have any plans to launch an MVNO (mobile virtual network)," an Apple spokeswoman said.
What has been said no longer applies, Apple quickly denied these "informational noises": http://www.macrumors.com/2015/08/04/apple-denies-rumors-of-plans-to-launch-mvno-carrier-services/
I think that Apple is rather flirting with the idea of a universal SIM, which would eliminate the need for a SIM slot inside the iPad and iPhone, which would take up less space and the devices could also be cleaner in design. Maybe it could also be used with iPods and use apple music for nothing, but I think that Apple has probably buried iPods for good... :(