Motorola and RIM submit a Nano SIM compromise

Earlier this month, we showed you Apple’s revised Nano SIM proposal the company submitted ahead of the final vote tally. The solution adds a small amount of plastic around the edges of the electrical contacts, making the upcoming tiny SIM card just long enough so that it can’t be forced lengthwise into an incompatible socket.

As you know, Research and Motion, Motorola and Nokia are pushing for their own variant. Both RIM and Motorola just submitted a Nano SIM compromise which borrows about 80 percent design solutions from Apple…

The RIM/Nokia/Motorola camp argued Apple’s Nano SIM proposal would make it easy for customers to accidentally jam it into a Micro SIM slot.

The companies have now submitted a revised variant to appease Apple, according to The Verge.

For the Apple design, seven voting members said it did not, 28 said it did. For the joint Nokia / RIM / Motorola design, it was a very different story: 23 members believed that it could be jammed into the wrong SIM slot, while just six said the requirement was met.

The above image represents a Nano SIM compromise by Motorola, RIM and Nokia.

Compare this to Apple’s submission, included below.

Can you spot the differences?

The publication explains:

You can see which elements of which original proposal were included in the compromise — it’s 80 percent Apple and 20 percent RIM / Motorola. The outline and contacts are carried over from the original Apple design, meaning that it’ll still be backward-compatible with larger SIMs when used with an adapter.

In fact, the only important element that they’ve added is a notch on one edge, a feature that RIM says would enable “push-push” mechanisms for storing the nano-SIM in devices — push it into a slot to secure it, push it again to pop it out. Without that notch, the design would necessitate a tray to hold it in place.

Apple’s solution originally envisioned a third-smaller SIM card with a tray, requiring devices to be re-engineered with this in mind.

Surprisingly, about 80 percent of the voting body in the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) is behind Apple’s proposal. This includes AT&T, Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Gemalto, Telecom Italia, Telefonica, Verizon, Vodafone and SIM card maker Giesecke & Devrient, to name a few.

As it seems, Nano SIM could appear in mobile devices in 2013, which means that an upcoming iPhone revision will likely utilize the existing Micro SIM, which took five years since ratification to appear in the iPhone 4.

The voting body will meet on May 31 and June 1 in Osaka, Japan to discuss the merits of a Nano SIM compromise by RIM and Motorola.

Thoughts?