"We were quite happy to see last week that Apple has submitted a new requirement to (European Telecoms Standards Body) ETSI for a smaller SIM form factor -- smaller than the one that goes in iPhone 4 and iPad," said Anne Bouverot, Orange's head of mobile services, at Reuters' Global Technology Summit.
A spokesman for ETSI told Reuters that the process could take up to a year or more, though "the process can be accelerated to a number of months" if there is broad concensus among participating companies. If rumors about a fifth-generation iPhone launching in June prove true, the mini micro-SIM card probably won't be reducing the size of its form factor.
Last January, CEO Steve Jobs introduced the micro-SIM card (known in the industry as a 3FF or "third form factor" SIM) when he announced the iPad. ETSI developed the 3FF SIM to fit into devices that were too small and thin for a regular 2FF SIM card. While the micro SIM holds the same data as a standard SIM card, they are not (for obvious physical reason) compatible with phones equipped with their larger siblings. Nor do all carriers support them yet.
Today, micro-SIM cards are used in the Apple iPhone 4, iPads, and T-Mobile's Lok8u nu-m8 children's GPS wristwatch.
Apple has reportedly tried to get rid of the unwieldy SIM card altogether. Last fall rumors surfaced that Apple and Gemalto were developing a proprietary SIM card that Apple would embed in all its devices, thus letting consumers purchase and activate iDevices as soon as they paid for them at Apple's retail stores. The move would have bypassed carriers altogether, and possibly taken away revenue from selling SIM cards, so it is unlikely the idea will ever receive the carriers' necessary cooperation.