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Comment by cjk2 | Hacker News Reader

Nice but the thing they said that interested me was iMessage via satellite. Now that is impressive for a minor feature.

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They didn't talk at all about costs which is odd for such a feature.

I think it's free (for now) like the emergency SOS. Well not free, you pay for it when you buy the phone.

the emergency SOS was only promised to be free for two years, which is coming to an end soon for iPhone 14.

i suspect adding iMessage to the service is an effort to make it valuable enough to start charging for it.

That sounds like a feature that will have major, lifesaving impacts for 0.01% of users but will not matter at all to most folks(cue the replies from the 10 HN users who need to tell me how important this is to them).

Also, wasn't this already announced?

It's a cool feature. I'm just not sure how impactful it will be. You could argue it's important in less connected areas of the world but are folks there using iPhones or are they using a cheap phone provided by Facebook or something?

> impacts for 0.01% of users but will not matter at all to most folks(cue the replies from the 10 HN users who need to tell me how important this is to them).

It seems like this impacts the millions of people who visit the National Parks in the US?

There is essentially no cellular service anywhere in the parks because the Park Service thinks people should put down their phones and enjoy nature. Wifi is only for guests of the in-park hotels, and is barely adequate for sending short text messages. I actually can't remember that last time I saw a payphone, but they are everywhere in the parks (and people use them) because of the lack of cellular coverage.

> Also, wasn't this already announced?

You're thinking of emergency SOS. This is for chatting to your friends.

Most people exist in the long tail of some distribution or another. The more features that exist which stay out of most people's way, but solve a problem on some long tail, the more the iPhone ecosystem will feel tailored to everyone.

I think super basic SMS or SOS of some kind was announced? Full imessage support is new.

> That sounds like a feature that will have major, lifesaving impacts for 0.01% of users but will not matter at all to most folks

Apple's "Emergency SOS" feature launched back in November 2022 (in the U.S., on iPhone 14 and up).

Normal texting via satellite will be subtle, perhaps, but it will be one of those things where we will look back and thing "huh, wasn't that weird when we could message people almost everywhere instead of everywhere?"

Plenty of people live, travel or recreate in places in the US with non-existent cell reception. Rivers, lakes, mountains etc are full of cell dead spots.

I hang around in the middle of nowhere in dangerous and stupid places a lot for days. It'd be nice to bounce the odd message to family to inform them that I'm not dead.

Get a Garmin InReach Mini 2, they're best-in-class for this purpose.

There's no denying that smartphone messaging via satellite is game-changing in this space (and I hope my Garmin Fenix watch will one day have 2-way SOS messaging capability integrated into it) but I wouldn't trust a smartphone for this.

We have a pool one for expeditions. But it's not reliable. The one time we needed it, the thing was on the fritz so we had to carry a guy with a broken leg 10km.

I would like 2 completely different channels to communicate over.

>major, lifesaving impacts for 0.01% of users

people who drive through areas where there's no cell coverage is certainly a larger demographic than 0.01%. having coverage to contact a friend or family member if you get in an accident or your car breaks down on 100% of your route instead of 99% of your route would be a big peace of mind upgrade for me.

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