In a recent interview with All Things D, Orange CEO Stephane Richard confirmed that Apple are working on a smaller SIM card for future mobile devices. In the same interview, he dropped a strong hint that the next iPhone would be both smaller, and thinner than the current iPhone 4.
The person who saw the prototype of the new iPhone said the device was significantly lighter than the iPhone 4 and had an edge-to-edge screen that could be manipulated by touch, as well as a virtual keyboard and voice-based navigation
Richard’s discussion with Apple is part of an ongoing dialogue with several carriers, including Orange, centering around reducing the size of the SIM to free up space to facilitate shrinking the dimensions of the next iPhone.
We are going to work with them in order to standardize a new format of SIM which takes into account our needs with security and authentication and also is compatible with their wishes in terms of size. I understood that the next iPhone would be smaller and thinner and they are definitely seeking some space.
The other possibility is that the smaller SIM is part of a plan for the much-rumored iPhone nano, which was hinted by the Wall Street Journal earlier this year.