I suspect this would've been a significant draw on the battery, which wouldn't be a great thing when you're out in the middle of nowhere.
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Apple Reportedly Shelves 'Walkie-Talkie' Feature Allowing iPhone-to-iPhone Messaging Without Wi-Fi or Cellular
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You didn't read the article, clearly.
$200 packages from AT&T to use your phone on a week long cruise comes to mind...
So in effect, this is to cellular what Ad-Hoc Wi-Fi is to Wi-Fi (which I think is the service used by AirDrop and other Apple features).
As a frequent skier, I would love this feature. Most walkie talkies are pretty clunky, even Motorola T800 that is supposed to be the pinnacle of consumer walkie talkie, which allows iPhone and Android to leverage the walkie talkie's antenna to send text and maps location.
As a frequent skier, I would love this feature. Most walkie talkies are pretty clunky, even Motorola T800 that is supposed to be the pinnacle of consumer walkie talkie, which allows iPhone and Android to leverage the walkie talkie's antenna to send text and maps location.
Mesh-communications would be very helpful in a natural disaster, massive power outage, etc.
I don’t get it.
The only thing I can think of that you’d want battery life for if you’re “in the middle of nowhere”, w/ no cellular or gps signal, would be to utilize this type of feature... if you have no connectivity what are you planning on doing w/ that battery life? I suppose you could sit down and scroll through your camera roll until your battery dies. I personally would FAR prefer being able to activate a mesh communication mode & contact people; even if I saw decreased battery life using that mode.
This was done a decade ago on iDEN phones (Nextel). The feature was called DirecTalk, ran in 900 MHz and was intended for use in areas where the cell network wasn't available. The protocol was spun off into Motorola's current DTR walkie-talkies.
As I recall, nobody ever used it because it required specific phones, and you had to get everybody in the special mode, which disabled cellular access.
As I recall, nobody ever used it because it required specific phones, and you had to get everybody in the special mode, which disabled cellular access.
That’s hardly innovation. To most people, anyway.
It’s simply a choice, likely made in consideration of various factors.
The company Oppo is about to introduce this in India, I think they're calling it Meshtalk. Like others, I'm apprehensive about how it will go down with the governmental agencies.
Don’t recall it being mentioned, but flip-flopping not too surprising
. I think it would be pretty useful given that there are so many natural disasters lately. Especially if intermediate phones could be used as relays so it’s not just endpoint-to-endpoint. The good news is that now that Apple owns the Intel broadband stuff, they can do it right.
I could see this being something that stays on the shelf until those are ready, yes. It would make for a great user-facing benefit of having their own tech in there.
Direct Connect was the network-based PTT. The peer-to-peer radio was DirecTalk (Nextel branding) or MOTO Talk (generic Motorola branding).
If you're willing to spend a couple hundred bucks, the option is out there right now. https://gotenna.com/
GPS is a passive technology which works anywhere your phone can "see" the sky. If you're out in the middle of nowhere, the only way GPS isn't going to work is if you're in a cave. GPS is almost certainly the most important reason you'd want to have your battery last as long as possible under those circumstances.
While it's true that you can't download updated area maps if you don't have cell service, most mapping applications now have the capability to download and store maps offline. I have a couple of offline areas set up in Google Maps, for example, so I can still use them without a cell signal.
Actually, while it's only tangentially related to this topic... that used to be one of the few advantages Apple Maps had over Google Maps (several years ago) - when setting up navigation, Apple Maps would download the maps for your entire route while Google Maps would only do it as needed. That occasionally would be a problem if you were on a long drive, out in the middle of nowhere, and Google Maps couldn't download the next segment.
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The FCC rules for 902-928 MHz are actually quite generous. As I recall, for a frequency-hopping (FHSS) system you can use up to 1 Watt of power as long as you use over 50 channels. That would be a max channel width of 500KHz with 2KHz separation between channels, for basic 4FSK that would be 1Mpbs max data rate, before accounting for packet loss, retransmits, etc. Definitely good enough for sending pictures, voice, etc. If you could increase the symbol rate to 64QAM or something like that you could get way more, but that would limit your range by reducing noise tolerance. The antennas would already be in the phone because 900MHz is used for cellular in Europe. The issue would be the European counterpart to unlicensed 900MHz, which for them is 868MHz, that has more limitations including a maximum airtime percent iirc.
For anyone wishing they had this feature on their phones, you might want to check out goTenna, which has basically made an aftermarket version of this using the MURS service. The lower the frequency, the lesser the free space power loss, so this is about as good as it gets for ultra-long range outdoor communications. Unlike 900MHz, which follows similar rules as the more familiar 2.4 and 5 GHz bands used by wifi/bt, MURS operates at five preset 151-154 MHz channels, and does not use spread spectrum, instead you have to do listen before talk. Prior to goTenna it was largely used only for two-way voice, although a few serial data radios existed. I don't own one so I can't speak to the quality of their design, but as far as radio band selection I don't think you can really compete with it. MURS doesn't really exist anywhere outside the US though, so it is no global solution.
You may be thinking of people making fun of the WT feature of the Apple Watch. Totally different thing. Afaik, this feature was never even rumored at all.
I don't think it was mentioned either. I think he's referencing the AW walkie talkie feature mistakenly.