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Comment by extheat | Hacker News Reader

Apple phones are a lot less ubiquitous than general cell phones. Anything with an antenna and a (e)SIM card can get access to the T-mobile network, so what Apple is providing might be nice but I can't see how they compete at the level SpaceX can. And the global regulatory approvals needed will be a problem for everyone.

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47% of smartphones in the USA are Apple. Seems pretty ubiquitous.

T-mobile has 110 million subscribers and the population of USA is 329 million people.

They don’t even have a majority, much less ubiquity.

Spend some time in an affluent neighborhood in a large metro area and I think you'll realize that isn't true. I sure don't know any Tribeca or Pacific Heights residents with Androids.

iPhones are the plurality. If you have a few random people together in the US there’s a good chance one of them in an iPhone. Pretty sure that’s what they meant.

Ubiquity is not a step above majority. It's a separate concept.

This is wrong.

Ubiquity means “everywhere”

So not only do you have a less than 50/50 chance of seeing an iPhone, it certainly isn’t everywhere.

They could put-compete if they can create an iPhone with extra powerful antennas or other hardware. Like they always do- own the full stack to allow it to work better.

you can't create "extra powerful antennas" in a cell phone. it's physics, and antenna gain is driven by size.

And then you need to design it in a way that it’s not blocked by somebody’s hand when they hold the phone.

Or just add a telescopic antenna and present it as "innovation never seen before".

What?! You mean, have an antenna show outside a phone, like in the pre-2010s? In today's world, form is more important than function.

Especially for fashion statements like iphones. (Doubt this? Upthread people are discussing how certain affluent neighbourhoods only have iphones).

It was somewhat off the cuff and meant to encapsulate the idea that you can improve the ability of the phone to connect with the satellite. That isn’t possible if you don’t design the phone.

You could potentially control the situation enough where a user can enable “satellite mode” which uses extra power for sending messages. It’d affect battery life, and need to be manually enabled, but it’d enable better connections in emergencies.

You could try to improve directional antennas and some sort of aiming system with the screen.

Lots of things that maybe could happen when you control the client side instead of just the satellite side.

Apple could partner with SpaceX and T-Mobile, like they did with AT&T and the original iPhone launch instead of trying to compete with them.

They could, but they’ve supposedly been working on hardware support for Globalstar satellites in the next iPhone for 2 years.

They want this as a differentiator from Android. Starlink will work on Android too.

So maybe it would actually make sense for Google to partner with them somehow (I believe they’re also a SpaceX investor) but I’m not sure how.

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