Man uses meat cleaver to fashion UK-ready iPad
Trimming down the SIM
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The MicroSIM being used by Apple's iPad is smaller than a normal SIM, but that's easily solved with a pair of scissors, or a meat cleaver if you'd prefer.
Certainly that's John Benson's preference: he got hold of a US-issue iPad 3G, sliced down his Vodafone SIM and managed to squeeze it into the MicroSIM slot on the iPad. He reports that it works just fine.
Not that there's any reason it shouldn't - the electronics on a SIM, and in a credit card for that matter, are glued to the back of the metal contacts and hang in a void carved out of the plastic. The surrounding body is nothing more than a glorified handle, so removing it shouldn't have any impact on the function.
There's no indication that the iPad is carrier-locked either. Right now the device is not operator-subsidised so Apple has no reason to impose restrictions. That may change in the UK, where operators have hinted they'll be offering subsidised iPads, but we'll have to wait to see if those are locked to a network, and how hard that lock is to break.
So it should work, though we're not sure why Benson feels a meat cleaver is the way to go. We've cut up a few SIMs in our time, and for precision work nail clippers are the tool of choice, but far be it for us to stand between a man and his blade of choice.
We don't have an iPad handy to try this with, so we can't guarantee success. If you want to give it a go, our advice is to practice with a cheap SIM first, and stick with nail clippers, unless you don't mind losing a finger or two in the process. ®
COMMENTS
man cuts big piece of plastic, makes it fit in small hole.
cool story bro
Heh Heh
You said Massive Tool. He he! Actually in the back of my mind I was linking massive-tool and the head of Apple, what's his name now, it escapes me, Stan...Stewart...Something?
Why a mini-sim anyway?
I still can't see any reason for the non-standard SIM. It's not as though the iPad is so small that you can't fit a regular SIM in it. However it means you can't swap your regular SIM from your phone if you want to use it Ad-Hoc.
It almost feels as if Steve just wants people to jump through hoops, get operators to bend over backwards and make his customers feel forced to do it the Apple way just to further his power-trip?
There must be a sound technical reason, surely?

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