Emergency SOS on Your iPhone | Hacker News Reader

Emergency SOS on Your iPhone

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18 pointstosh21 comments

A non-obvious convenience is that triggering this (with or without auto-call), it disables Face ID. It's an easy and subtle gesture if you're in a situation where someone might activate Face ID without your permission, like a theft.

Or TSA or other law enforcement. In the US, you cannot be compelled to give your password (compelled speech), but the law is less clear on biometrics. Some courts have treated thumbprints like speech, but higher courts have not yet weighed in. The one sure thing is that passcodes are speech and cannot be compelled.

Note that you don't need to actually trigger emergency SOS to make this happen, just holding down the buttons to show the power off/restart/emergency screen is enough to disable face ID.

> (In India, you only need to press the button three times, then your iPhone will call emergency services automatically.)

Curious. Why the difference?

Seems to be a law since 2017

https://9to5mac.com/2016/04/26/indian-government-will-requir...

PSA: Careful when adjusting your volume while your wearing headphones (without a mic), while your phone is in your pocket by squeezing the sizes of your phone. There’s nothing more stressful than trying to pull over on the shoulder, get your helmet and gloves off, while a 911 dispatcher is repeatedly asking if you’re ok and need help.

For sure. This happened to me while I was driving and had an Airpod in my ear. I was able to hang up before the 911 dispatcher picked up, but they immediately called back to make sure I was OK. Glad to know they're so diligent!

I was taught as a kid (80s) that if you accidentally dial 911, stay on the line and tell the dispatcher it was a misdial. This saves them the callback time; the person you’re talking to is often the same one on the radio to fire/police/medical, especially in less populated areas.

Yep, that was my takeaway from this experience as well.

I also realized that if you're hiding from someone and you call 911, you should expect your phone to ring/buzz if you hang up. Better to stay on the line silently, covering the speaker!

I had it accidentally enabled on a roller-coaster myself. Both my friend and I had zipper pockets so we could bring lose items and a particular rocking motion managed to trigger it on both of our phones. Didn't realize until after we were off and the local police dept was trying to call back. I always wondered after that how often that happened per day.

PSA follow-up: Tried something like Chubby Buttons?

Is there a decent way to test this? I'd like to trigger it and have it go all the way to making the call to be sure it is set up right and working, but I'm not sure the 911 operator would appreciate that.

> If you continue to hold down the side button and Volume button, instead of dragging the slider, a countdown will start and an alert will sound.

It probably should not make a sound. In a some situations where you might need this, it might be best to be able to activate it silently.

> Here's how to make the call on iPhone 8 or later

I wonder how many people actually remember what buttons to press in an emergency situation - it’s also different depending on which device you use.

Genuinely curious why this is on hacker news?

It's useful to know.

The phone I have right now doesn't have such a feature. I've idly wondered whether it's in breach of some law because of that.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

TL;DR: If you feel its not appropriate for HN, flag it and move on.

I think this response assumes snark in the post - since emergency calling has been around and is a feature of the phone - has something notable happened that would bubble this up. I don't believe the intent was to assume this didn’t belong - but a request for more context on why it was being posted / voted up.

> I don't believe the intent was to assume this didn’t belong

I'm genuinely curious why you think that.

The phrasing of "genuinely curious" implies innocent curiosity rather than snark. I assume you're referencing this yourself though through use of the same phrase, haha

Assume good faith.

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