Will Apple kill the SIM card?

GigaOM reports rumors that Apple and Gemalto work on integrating a SIM into iPhone circuit board. Everyone believes that this is totally unaccaptable for the network operators, but probably they want the iPhone badly enough so that they would accept this.

Here is what would come out of that:

• precious space on the PCB is saved
• the new security element might also contain payment applets
• the general security of the iPhone might be improved.
• changing the mobile network operator could become extremely simple, even automatic.

There were rumors before that apple wants to enter the NFC universe. It will be important to see if Apple makes SIM switching really easy. They could if they wanted to. Also, it will be very interesting to see if such a device could also get EMV certifications.