Emergency SOS via satellite is included for free with iPhone 14 Pro for 2 years
apple.com
apple.com
I’d love to know what the antenna arrangement is. I’d have guessed something like a log periodic laid out on the inside of the rear case.
iPhone 14 doesn't have WiFi 6E on any model.
If they ever try to offer Starlink-level speed it'll be a different story. That will require a Starlink-sized external antenna.
Or get a fancy holder and hold in place for an hour to get X minutes of video updates.
Or overnight for the latest AppleTV banger.
Basically a mini-direcTV.
https://www.theverge.com/2022/9/6/23339717/huawei-mate-50-pr...
The first phone maker to add satellite texting to its devices is... Huawei
Huawei has announced the Mate 50 series, a day ahead of Apple’s September event and with a feature that the iPhone 14 is expected to offer: the ability to send texts via satellite communication. The Mate 50 and Mate 50 Pro will be able to send short texts and utilize navigation thanks to China’s global BeiDou satellite network, allowing for communication in areas without cellular signal.
It seems Apple uses the GlobalStar LEO satllites for these communication.[0]
Huawei is using BeiDou[1], which is the navigation satellite system. BeiDou is something just like GPS, but has the capability to send short text message. Huawei is using that function for SOS meesage.
Basically you can expect wherever you can receive navigation signals, you can send your SOS message.
[0] https://www.reuters.com/technology/apple-picks-globalstar-sa...
Which will more likely be used as a tool to allow the supreme leaders to invade your privacy even more.
Imagine people could be saved in theory (and die) but not in practice because they did not paid their emergency subscription.
And even worse: Imagine you could pay later but you don't use that option because you want to save money oO
A lot of ethical problems in my opinion.
The SPOT plans and the competing Garmin inReach plans are not cheap:
https://www.findmespot.com/en-us/products-services/service-p...
I imagine there's better coverage in a national park though.
Contrary to popular belief, search and rescue doesn't always send a helicopter. It's still common to send a ranger on foot and help walk somebody out on the trail. Or if that's not possible, to take a team of humans and carry someone out on a litter.
More generally... From what I was trained, ~12 hours is considered a fast rescue. The average time (according to the FAA's pilot survival training) is 31 hours, even with a known good location fix. 72 hours is very possible if there's inclement weather or difficulty locating someone.
Being two-way, the other advantage of the inreach is that rescuers can ask you questions and tell you when they expect to arrive etc.
That said, the delta in functionality between what the iphone will offer and what an inreach offers in an emergency situation is probably not enough for the vast majority of people to want to purchase an inreach and a subscription, unless they also have a use for non-emergency communication outside of cell coverage.
[1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/TAM_5
[2] https://www.diyphotography.net/djis-new-matrice-300-rtk-dron...
https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/uk-border-agency-tasked-dron...
As for whether it's worth it--it depends on what you're doing. As a backcountry hiker that often goes solo I consider it essential insurance. If something happens that's likely the only way I would get help rather than ending up like the guy on our local mountains that disappeared a couple of weeks ago--certainly dead by now (there's no water to be had) but his body hasn't been found.
And that seems about right compared to SPOT monthly pricing, considering it's intended for much greater usage than one time every 3 years.
Just hook it up to Apple Pay.
“Pay $1000 to make an emergency call”
/s
Is it any better PR if there are stories out there of bodies found starved to death in the wilderness equipped with an iPhone that has the hardware capabilities to contact emergency services, but couldn't because the person didn't pay Apple life insurance
Besides, if they included a few tweet-sized non-emergency text messages and location updates a day in a reasonably priced subscription, I bet that would sell like hotcakes in outdoorsy circles. People bring their phone anyway, so 2-3 iPhones on your party might make the InReach redundant. I'd love that.
I also think my inReach can take a lot more abuse than an iPhone.
I also think it will drive the satellite guys to offer a different service--SOS only, you pre-pay a fixed price that doesn't expire. (Actually, we already have a limited version of this--personal locator beacons have no monthly cost but have to be sent in for refurbishment if used. They are highly reliable but carry nothing but ID and GPS, you can't alter the message.)
But given the era of recurring subscription revenue above all else, I think we know how Apple will handle this.
The satellites are expensive, of course, but most traffic is not cell phone users needing to be rescued.
A 1 time upfront access fee, to cover satellite fixed costs, plus a per-use fee to cover marginal costs.
Subscription-only leaves money on the table.
That said it may have a “using this feature binds you to a new agreement where you pay for all the time you discontinued our service”
Not sure the cost for this feature but the marginal cost is likely really low. So a day of coverage would maybe cost a few cents or dollars since they are already including 2 years free without raising the price.
This is very different from a day of homeowners insurance where the payout is hundreds of thousands or millions. The marginal cost on insurance is very high.
But it is like insurance in that it is a (likely very) large upfront cost for Apple that needs to be shared by many small subscriptions.
If no one has to pay for it until they need it, the venture from Apple's side goes in the red.
Disclaimer: Speculating on the likely economy of it, I don't know.
It's abhorrent. We ensure cell phones can always call 911 even without a plan for instance which unlike insurance is a nearly identical situation. The logical thing to do is just take it out of the hands of service providers by always requiring carriage of such a call in all circumstances and expecting OEMs/service providers to make back that money on device or service wherein such a device includes that function.
If I had an Iridium handset and the sub ran out and I was adrift, would I still be able to make an emergency call?
On the other hand maybe let it fallback as a PLB.
Your phone can still call emergency services, even without a SIM card.
Apple uses high orbit satellites for SOS and "Find My" limited to iPhones; Starlink/T-Mobile would use low orbit satellites not limited to for SOS/calling/texting/data ("Find My") for any brand/model phone.
in two years, it'll either continue to be free, or it will be discontinued (or transitioned to an "if you want it, go pay money to globalstar" model)
If someone makes this choice in a legitimate emergency, I would refer to it as a shot of chlorine in the gene pool.
https://www.satellitetoday.com/telecom/2022/09/07/apple-to-d...
Globalstar is probably preparing for an influx of new users to their service who would otherwise not own a satellite-capable device.
Also, don’t overestimate their bandwidth. I rented a sat-phone once for weather updates mid Atlantic. Text only emails could take a minute to ul/dl with full reception.
edit: It’s also worth mentioning that the bandwidth is very limited, but I thought it worth calling out the above
I wonder if Apple expects the government to institute similar requirements soon for satellite (if that’s possible) and this won’t cost anything.
In the meanwhile, Apple is using it as a differentiated feature.
Mandatory 911 sat service on phones that support will save a lot of lives!!
How many people have died in the US because they were in distress but did not have cell phone coverage and were in a position where they could send a transmission to a satellite (e.g. clear view of the sky, etc.)?
https://www.biometrica.com/into-the-abyss-how-people-go-miss...
I'm pretty sure apple will advertise it in next year's iPhone event though
Off the top of my head (local news or cases I have heard of from fellow hikers):
One keeled over dead, on the trail and part of a group.
Two diabetics, alone but not lost.
One found dead on the trail, apparently an insta-kill medical issue.
One lost, never found, but I suspect he was actually a suicide. If not, he was trying for a Darwin.
One near the road going for help after a vehicle breakdown.
One got cliffed out trying to go for help after a vehicle breakdown. Not really lost, but unable to proceed.
One disappeared, his body hasn't been found where he was expected to be but given his experience level lost is unlikely. Personally, I suspect he went off trail for something and keeled over.
There have also been two skeletons pulled out of the desert, probably lost but it's unlikely we will ever know.
Admittedly, a small sample but note that only 20% of those appear to be lost.
I've also talked to a woman who just about became one of those statistics--new to the area and didn't respect the heat. Not lost.
Most wilderness deaths are medical or accident, not lost, and a lot of national park deaths are traffic accidents.
https://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/29/nyregion/29crash.html
I had a similar issue in Maine a few years ago except it was summer and I just had to walk 30 minutes. It definitely happens.
(Assuming free meaning "any device can connect, regardless of subscription status". In this case, Apple is essentially subsidizing the service costs for their users, and only for a limited time - there is still a paid subscription on the backend.)
It's worth noting that the government already offers free distress alerting via the COSPAS-SARSAT satellite system - though it's one-way communication only. It would be interesting if a future iteration of the system allowed for smaller antennas and two-way communication with the rescue coordination center dispatchers.
It's interesting because it was never intended to work like that, it's basically just a hack that uses a test signal to dispatch an "I'm ok" message
By one-way communication, I was referring to the default "I'm in distress, here's my coordinates, send help" message, which is the only message the system can officially transmit. There's no way to carry on a two-way conversation to collect further details, or even a mechanism to acknowledge the message - though due to a very robust system design, it's very unlikely the message wouldn't get received.
I had to use it once, believe it or not, when I almost died in the mother of all ironies - in the middle of Death Valley, California.
The U.S. Air Force directed an ambulance in my direction from a nearby town.
Have a COSPAS-SARSAT emergency beacon is all I am saying. They are expensive, but it's a one-time purchase. The service is free.
In the rest of the world too.
Your emergency subscription expired yesterday, should I renew it the next time you have wifi?
1. This feature is relatively expensive for Apple. Satellite communication isn't free, and Apple don't have their own infrastructure for this.
2. They've signed a 2 year contract with whichever provider they're using.
3. They want to see if this feature is even popular before committing to supporting it for longer at all.
The number of Afib/high heart rate detections are miniscule, but serves as great marketing. Good enough for me to order one today.
I suspect it’ll be commonplace for many/most people will have some kind of health monitoring device.
It can detect atrial fibrillation, but that's a different thing from a regular heart attack.
Their work on accessibility disproves your assertion.
But they also don’t want to commit to a price until they have a couple years of experience under their belts.
Whatever the terms of the deal is, hitting certain benchmarks is part of it.
While not always true internationally, at least in the US most jurisdictions won't charge for rescue as long unless you weren't careless and reckless. Even where state law allows for recovering rescue costs, it's a high bar before they'll actually send out a bill... they normally don't want to discourage people from calling from help until it's too late, if it's truly needed. (Keep in mind that rescue in the wilderness can easily take 12-48 hours.)
That said, laws allowing the state to recoup rescue costs are becoming more common as satellite messengers have become more prevalent, leading to more non-emergency nuisance calls.
See: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/06/us/rescue-hikers-cost.htm...
I have a Zoleo device and pay for the $40/yr coverage. You just register your device's IMEI with them.
Cost of rescue really depends where you're at though. In a national park like Mt. Rainier you aren't actually charged even if they have to helicopter you off the top of the mountain--rescues are paid for by the cost of a climbing permit that everyone pays to go above 10k feet. In other places SAR teams operate like volunteer fire departments and get funding from the county. But yeah, in some places a helicopter rescue is going to cost you directly and it is not cheap--at Mt. Shasta the rangers were telling me it was about $14k per incident.
By then, there could other satellite-based services that would be subscription-based.
Apple certainly doesn’t need a subsidy; if anything, they may end up subsidizing future satellite launches with the $200 billion—-give or take—-they’re sitting on.
As a garmin inReach user, I hope this supports location report to closed friends like how Garmin did. But it's not. It is only for emergency.
I believe they showed location reporting through FindMy to friends, so not only for emergency scenarios.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07V6CWS26/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b...
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01C6RCRIW/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b...
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_position-indicating_...
Garmin InReach on the other hand uses Iridum (LEO only as far as I know) which is used to report to IERCC (a private emergency response coordinator).
The reason you might want GEO and MEO are:
1. While LEO (unlike GEO) cover the poles as well due to their North-South orbit, they have 60-90 min orbit period, which means more latency, where as GEO covers 70% of earth at all time.
2. Even if there multiple overlapping LEO around you which shorten the orbit period and hence the max latency, you might have limited view of the sky (especially if you happen to be in a North-South canyon) in which case it's good to have an increased chance of delivering that distress signal.
LEO satellite strength, as far as I know is in their ability to receive signal even in severe weather.
Iridium has inter-satellite links and the satellites accordingly don‘t need to store a message until they are in view of a ground station again – message delivery is effectively instant, globally.
Unlike PLBs, Iridium devices require a paid subscription, though.
Moreover, GPS can be flaky under such conditions too, in which case MEO satellites might be able to provide fast Doppler detection to approximate the device location to few miles area and responders can further reduce the search area.
On the other hand, satellite tracker (such as Garmin InReach) advantage would be that it can be configured to try and send its location every 10 minutes, therefore, even if at the current location there's no signal, your last tracked location might be not far away.
They'll then not cancel it, and they've successfully raised their annual/monthly recurring revenue for a fair % of their users.
“Let friends know how remote you go. If you’re on an adventure without cell service, you can now use Find My to share your location via satellite so friends and family know where you are.“
1. Whatever fees the satellite network charges them.
2. The cost to maintain the call centers they're routing your contact with the nearby emergency services through. (They say they'll put you in direct text contact if the emergency department supports it, but otherwise they'll be intermediaries.)
This suggests to me that how much this costs in an ongoing way is going to be heavily dependent on how much it's used, such that locking themselves in to a pricing structure before they have any idea how much use it'll see is a bad idea for them.
> I hope this supports location report to closed friends like how Garmin did
They mentioned in the presentation that you can make a non-emergency use of this system to ping your location to their Find My network. So it's at least a way to keep your Apple-ecosystem friends updated on where you are when you're out of cell range.
This is really a killer feature for me as an outdoor enthusiast who hangs out in places with no reception every other weekend. I'm also a weight weenie and really care about how heavy the stuff I carry is. I'm going to keep an eye on how well this works in the field for sure.
I've been considering a Garmin InReach Mini, its roughly $350 for the device and $300 for a satellite subscription for 2 years.
If the satellite messing works well, this phone just added $650 worth of value for me on top of a regular iPhone. Basically, it doesn't matter how much a continued subscription will cost after year two. I'd be completely happy to buy a new phone in two years just for this one feature.
I sincerely hope in two years the SOS feature is free and a limited data plan for $$$ exists. This could also explain the 85% of sat service usage. But we shouldn't have to hope such a thing exists...
* We can hate people all we want for this "feature" but the fact of the matter its how we're built.
The big reason InReach/Spot subscription devices are so popular is that they include non-emergency messaging to family as part of the service.
Some of them will get lost and some of them will have this smart watch.
And some of those may have an expired feature which could save their life.
We had met on a local summit although we had approached it via different routes. We were on a spur off a longer trail--and he took the wrong direction when coming back to the main trail. I encountered him probably an hour later and realized his mistake and got him headed back to his car. Had he continued there was one junction ahead--if he took the left branch he would end up where I was parked which was miles from his car. If he took the right branch he would have failed to end up at a slightly more distant parking lot as by the trail it was about 16 miles away, going over a summit just below 12k' (we were a bit above 9k' at the time) in the process. His phone battery was dead, it was near the new moon and that route goes near cliffs.
Wait until some exec gets a bright idea on how they can make more money.
To be fair, that requires constant road updates and scanning, so there is a very real cost to them.
[0]: https://www.garmin.com/en-US/c/outdoor-recreation/satellite-...
EDIT: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT213426
Covers many of the particulars.
It costs about 50$ or so to register for the year and you just pay for a month when you need it. Well worth the secuirty. It also has a dedicated SOS button under a cap that you can press during an emergency. It will send your location to an international monitoring center that will dispatch someone local to your location for rescue. You can opt in for insurance that I believe covers an air lift.
It also can double as a location tracker or rudimentary GPS if you need directions to civilization or lake.
You can also get a older ELT-style 121.5 MHz but I wouldn't really recommend it. Might be nice as a last-ditch.
I test out my InReach every time I go out of cell service and it Just Works.
Setup was a pain though.
I wear one a lot since I live alone in the woods without cell or internet service for several months out of the year.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_position-indicating_...
https://oceansignal.com/products/plb1/
You buy it, you never pay anything else, it works all over the planet, in extreme conditions, you never need to charge its battery (good for 7+ years), and most importantly, it communicates with an exclusive satellite constellation dedicated to search and rescue, operated by national governments. Your emergency call is handled directly by local government agencies, the military in many parts of the world, who have a duty to respond to the emergency - in accordance with international treaties.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Cospas-Sarsat_Pr...
For the US, it's on a state-by-state basis but rescue is usually free as long as it's a true emergency and you weren't blatantly reckless to begin with.
For other parts of the world, you might get a bill to recover the cost of rescue. But in most cases it's still usually free.
(Medical care once you get back to civilization is a different story.)
I think the weakest link, by far, is texting 911 or routing through a call centre.
That doesn't seem likely. Offering something for free doesn't mean you're legally off the hook for what it does. That's especially true when the "free" thing you're offering is part of a package deal that you're selling to the public. If they're rolling out an emergency relay, they'd better be confident that it'll work the vast, vast majority of the time.
https://daringfireball.net/linked/2021/09/14/iphone-13-satel...
Not sure why he would think that - previous iPhones don't have satellite receiver. Apple was however previously rumoured to be working with Qualcomm on a modified X60 modem, for satellite connectivity.
So the international versions do have the hardware. That's good to know.
>except if they bought their phone in China mainland, Hong Kong, or Macao. Emergency SOS via satellite isn't offered on iPhone models purchased in China mainland, Hong Kong, or Macao.
No comment.
https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Technology/Huawei-unveils-M...
Interesting picture I found on another HN thread, posted by walrus01. See if you note something interesting
https://www.globalstar.com/Globalstar/media/Globalstar/Image...
[1] https://apollosat.com/docs/countries-where-satellite-phones-...
...
I guess there will be decade for advertising tech based primary on health benefits.
I would assume when you buy the iphone15 it would come with another 2-years of coverage.
I was unable to find nation wide stats on search and rescue events.
[1] https://www.adirondackexplorer.org/stories/record-number-of-...
When I lived in the desert, the local newspaper regularly published stories about tourists getting lost/stuck/stranded and then dying.
Going by the newspaper accounts, I'd estimate at least a dozen people died in the desert each year, and that was just in my area.
And that's not even counting the lives saved.
Here in Las Vegas we have a ring of mountains around the city--and virtually no cell coverage beyond that ring. Even within the ring the outlying areas are often shadowed out.
I have never not lost cell coverage when going on a hike in the mountains, and I only go on casual day hikes.
I wouldn't be surprised if there's a lot of midwest areas that have a similar problem.
It's a great feature but it's far from a guaranteed money maker. This could just as likely disappear from future iPhone models.
edit: also competing dedicated devices also include the cost of SAR insurance in their monthly fees, which are significant: https://www.garmin.com/en-US/p/837461/pn/010-06000-SU
It starts at $15 a month but any serious user is paying more like $35-65 a month.
While I don't know how large this group is, skiers, hikers, boaters, campers, off-roaders would all likely get use out of this functionality.
Hahahahahahaha! Not a chance. Maybe the over landing crowd, and hardcore hikers, but most casual enjoyers of the outdoors definitely do NOT have a Spot or InReach. Next time you’re on a ski hill, ask around - you’ll be shocked how few people have them.
and for a life saving device like this i know a subset of people will not want it a part of their phone.
...but this will definitely take a LOT of business from garmin because i believe that subset to be pretty small.
With that said, the iPhone (Pro?) is becoming somewhat of a swiss army knife for casual tramping: offline maps with GPS and a compass, an excellent set of cameras, an ereader, excellent battery life to back all that up _and_ it can now communicate with the rest of the world in non-life threatening -- but marginal -- situations. As an example, we leave intentions with people whenever we leave ("here is our route, if we're not back by midday on the third, contact SAR"); being able to message people and say "hey, I've rolled my ankle, we're safe but will be late because we're limping out, don't worry" is a pretty excellent feature.
We're probably a niche market, but several friends in that community are pretty excited about this feature. For 2-3 day trips, this makes the outdoors much more accessible.
Kind of like how Collision Detection could have been an excellent Apple Watch upsell feature but was brought to all iPhones anyway.
They recognize the power of things like fall and afib detection for pushing into the ever growing consumer Health market.
[1] https://www.rei.com/learn/expert-advice/personal-locator-bea...
Most rural areas in the US that aren’t near a town center or major highways are pretty spotty.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/08/report-apple-is-expl...
Companies are extraordinarily anti-consumer now, but in ways that indulge the customer such that they don't realize it.
I don't know what to say about it other than the anecdotal observance; companies won't stop the behavior -- it's extraordinarily profitable ; and it generally seems as if the public doesn't care. It nudges the perceived quality up a bit and the consumer doesn't bother reading the 75 page EULA, so they're generally unaware that they own very little of the product they paid so much for.
I find myself pining for the days when a consumer transaction was , generally, a simple A-B money-for-product type transfer rather than this constantly connected service industry that everything has slowly evolved into.
Sorry for the rant, I offer no solutions , only hope that there may be a solution somewhere that will give the rights back to the consumer while remaining competitive enough that the company that supports the people will flourish; i'm not holding my breath -- but thinks like the framework laptop and so on are a step in the right direction and a sign of hope for me personally that i'm not the only one with consumer rights on their mind.
The solution is not buying their products or services, and buying the most open and least bad thing that meets your needs. When consumers prioritize openness, right to repair, and actual privacy the market will eventually follow in that direction. Apple feels they can play the privacy angle, but it's just privacy to keep you in the garden and away from 3rd party ad tech and to completely capture the revenue stream.
Where on earth is the content wrt SOS and satellites?
The way I see this going is this becoming an increasingly popular/common private service until yeah eventually lawmakers take note and make a nationalized equivalent available to all.
Honestly, right now Uber is the only reason I have to use a smartphone. I have been able to move every other use case to a laptop. Or flip phone with removable battery.