iPhones have been around for nearly eleven years now, and all of them have been standard, single SIM-card slot toting affairs. While this may not be of general concern to many smartphone users, there may be some who have lamented the lack of native hardware support for dual SIMs.
A recent discovery made via the diagnostic tools that come with the iOS 12 beta 5 - which was seeded to developers just yesterday - reveals that Apple may be readying iOS to support two SIM slots instead of just one. The code in question alludes to strings such as "second SIM status" and "second SIM tray status", with other code components making references to a "dual-SIM device".
It's unlikely that these changes are inconsequential, because - and this is stating the obvious - unlike Android, iOS is tailored solely for iPhones, leading one to infer that the presence of such references in its code very likely means that a device with this feature is around the corner.
Dual-SIM phones never took off in the U.S., primarily because phones there are most commonly sold directly by mobile network carriers. They are immensely popular all over Asia and Africa, however, and professionals in various fields tend to prefer separate numbers for personal and work purposes. Android devices have been the primary (and more often than not, only) caterers to these demands, and Apple, it now seems, may want a slice of this pie for itself.
Of course, it remains to be seen if actual hardware sporting dual-SIM support sees the light of day, so we'll have to sit tight until Apple announces its smartphone lineup for this year.
Source: 9to5Mac
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