Owners of cellular iPads are no longer able to use a supplied Apple SIM to activate a data plan for their tablet, forcing users to either use a different physical SIM or move to eSIM.

The digital version of the SIM card, included on many newer phones, is set to become prevalent. It also offers affordable cellular data abroad.

Users can also continue to use the physical SIM card activated by the carrier. The US version of course already includes eSIM, so this is essentially just updating the Chinese model to the same spec.