Orange Plans SIM with 8,000 Times More Capacity

[Mike Temporale]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://today.reuters.com/news/newsarticle.aspx?type=technologyNews&storyid=2006-02-15T191835Z_01_L15522377_RTRUKOC_0_US-TELECOMS-ORANGE-SIMCARDS.xml' target='_blank'>http://today.reuters.com/news/newsarticle.aspx?type=technologyNews&storyid=2006-02-15T191835Z_01_L15522377_RTRUKOC_0_US-TELECOMS-ORANGE-SIMCARDS.xml</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Mobile phone group Orange plans to launch SIM cards this year that can store up to 8,000 times the data stored on present day SIMs, potentially helping to transform a traditional phone into a multimedia player. The France Telecom unit said on Wednesday the 512-megabyte "MegaSIM" cards could store up to 130 songs, three movies or 80 games, compared with existing 64 kilobyte cards which could at best store a phone book and some text messages."</i><br /><br />512 Meg on a SIM card?! That's cool. 8) It's a great location to install those 3rd party applications and thus keeping for miniSD card free for pictures, videos, or whatnot. Swapping your SIM between phones would mean you get all your programs and files too, without having to transfer your memory card. I can only hope that we see this on other carriers shortly after Orange releases it. :D

[shindullin]

Having all your programs on your sim would be a strong incentive to keep your carrier. Especially if you don't have a mini-sd card. I would think it would "incentivize" other carriers into following suit if it served to lower customer churn.

[Sven Johannsen]

I don't see "install to SIM" when I install a new app, nor do I see the option to send pictures or music to it now. Doesn't even show up as a memory location in the file manager. Only thing it can do now is to store and retrieve contacts and not even full Outlook contacts, just names and numbers. Needs to be some work done in the OS and apps to take advantage of more RAM on a SIM I would think. Wonder what comes first, the megaSIM or the ability to use it.