By David Young
Electronics giant Apple is developing a standard r new, smaller SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) cards, as it will allow the company to develop thinner smartphones in the future. The Apple filed its proposal last week, when ETSI's (European Telecommunications Standards Institute) Smart Card Platform technical committee met, according to a spokesman.

The committee is yet to decide whether to accept the proposal. If ETSI accepts the proposal, Apple will be able to produce the devices using the small SIM card by the end of the year. But for that to happen ETSI members, which include industry and government representatives, have to agree on technical details. If not that is not the case, it will take longer, ETSI said.

According to Carolina Milanesi, research vice president at Gartner, there are many things which make smartphone successful, so the companies will definitely like to save space. But shrinking the SIM card will cause compatibility issues, but the operators can use jackets that allow the smaller card to be used in older phones, said Milanesi. Apple is yet to comment on the report. Milanesi added that the SIM card is still an untapped resource, and the companies can make it more intelligent. The companies can put more features on the SIM card to give operators more control.

Many companies promote their tablet or smartphone as "the thinnest in the world", and Apple will try to launch the smaller standardized SIM card as soon as possible in order to race ahead of the competitors. Orange welcomed Apple’s plan but said that the new SIM card standard must support the requirements that are supported by the existing SIM cards.