Apple Responds to Yet Another Report About iPhone 14's Crash Detection Feature Triggering False 911 Calls

[riverfreak]

Combine ALL of those vs the time people spend driving normal cars under normal circumstances and then convince me that your pile of fringe cases should be prioritized.

I never said the fringe cases should be prioritized.

But it’s utterly bizarre to collect millions of hours of testing for a major feature like this and apparently be oblivious to edge cases.

I’d happily eat my shorts if someone would demonstrate that they did test in other venues and found the false positive rate acceptable / explainable. As of now, Apple certainly seem surprised by this. It’s a little like the AirTags rollout.

 

[giffut]

Well, Apple should run its own call center to be able to filter this high rate of failure. They don't because they chesp it out.

At the moment they are pigybacking on public emergency infrastructure and draining its availability, emotionally regarding its operators and financially.

Not good at all.

 

[d686546s]

The bottom line is that this is a potentially life-saving feature that has some flaws that Apple either didn't anticipate, didn't test for or didn't care about.

Rather than having a few people from Apple observe a call centre for a day, I'd think 911 operators need to collect some data about how many of the Apple Watch or iPhone-generated 911 calls are bogus in a given time period. They're the only ones who can, hopefully with support (financial or otherwise) from Apple.

If it turns out that this is an isolated problem with certain activities, Apple can either refine the algorithm or geofence certain locations, or maybe the call centres can introduce certain procedures that just screen these calls out.

If it's a bigger nationwide problem, Apple needs to go back to the drawing board.

I think this absolutely needs to be taken seriously, but without hard data it's really just anyone's guess.

 

[giffut]

The bottom line is that this is a potentially life-saving feature that has some flaws that Apple either didn't anticipate, didn't test for or didn't care about.

Rather than having a few people from Apple observe a call centre for a day, I'd think 911 operators need to collect some data about how many of the Apple Watch or iPhone-generated 911 calls are bogus in a given time period. They're the only ones who can, hopefully with support (financial or otherwise) from Apple.

If it turns out that this is an isolated problem with certain activities, Apple can either refine the algorithm or geofence certain locations, or maybe the call centres can introduce certain procedures that just screen these calls out.

If it's a bigger nationwide problem, Apple needs to go back to the drawing board.

I think this absolutely needs to be taken seriously, but without hard data it's really just anyone's guess.

No, if Apple wants to use public service emergency infrastructure, it must invest much much more effort and financing and testing to be allowed to. If they don't such a feature dhould be regulated away.

One person saved via this is not better than ten ignored because their calls don't come through.

The more I think about this the more I get angry about the arrogance and hybris of Apple.

 

[d686546s]

No, if Apple wants to use public service emergency infrastructure, it must invest much much more effort and financing and testing to be allowed to. If they don't such a feature dhould be regulated away.

One person saved via this is not better than ten ignored because their calls don't come through.

The more I think about this the more I get angry about the arrogance and hybris of Apple.

I'm not sure I agree.

First, I personally think the best route to keep the public save is through public infrastructure that is accessible to all. If you walk it off too much, make interacting with it too burdensome or put private bureaucracy in the middle you're just undermining the system. That's my main criticism of Apple bringing its satellite rescue service mainstream.

Second, we just don't know whether the assumption that a lot of emergencies are being missed because of bogus calls holds. That may well be the case, but from quite a lot of experience working with blue light organisations at local and national level I can say that the underlying data is often really bad and neither do local anecdotes always accurately describe a national trend, nor does a national trend always describe local realities. I don't think you can really test this reliably in any other place than the frontline and the only place you can get the data from is the providers of the 911 service, because ultimately they are the ones who make the call whether a response is needed or not. Maybe you can do smaller public trials, but at the end of the day this system needs to survive in the wild.

Third, where I do agree is that Apple needs to commit time and resources to work out the kinks and work closely with the frontline providers to achieve this. I also think, and here is where it really goes against Apple's business interest, that this needs involvement from Google and Samsung and others who want to provide a similar service because while I do think facilitating access to potentially life-saving medical care is a good thing that we should support however we can, it's not the role of the public sector to give Apple a competitive advantage and the repeat the same thing in a couple of years with other tech companies.

 

[I7guy]

[…], it's not the role of the public sector to give Apple a competitive advantage and the repeat the same thing in a couple of years with other tech companies.

public sector is not giving apple a competitive advantage. Apple is bringing tech that used to be on the cars themselves down to the phone. Google already did this and I don’t hear people saying the public sector has given google a competitive advantage.

And good for us that apple is using their own tech advantage to bring life saving tech, such as emergency satellite SOS, to the masses.

 

[_Refurbished_]

Why not limit this feature to roadways?

-iPhone detects crash
-iPhone then pings its own location
-iPhone determines its current location is in a mountain
-iPhone cancels emergency response

 

[acconda81]

So as far as I can see this is just an issue with snow sports, which is a small minority of users it does help. Yes perhaps they should implement different options for this taking part is more high impact sports. In the UK for example it would take 5 hours anyway for anyone to come out to you by that time you may have realised lol

 

[d686546s]

public sector is not giving apple a competitive advantage. Apple is bringing tech that used to be on the cars themselves down to the phone. Google already did this and I don’t hear people saying the public sector has given google a competitive advantage.

Well the product in its current form is obviously flawed. We don't know how big of a problem it really is, but it seems big enough in combination with certain use cases. This needs to be fixed.

That will probably require certain things that are entirely within Apple's remit: collect more data, run simulations, improve the algorithm and the model etc etc etc.

The other part is working with the public sector to address broader issues and actually understand the scale of the problem, whether there's other concerns that need to be addresses and make the various systems work together more seamlessly. That's the part where I think this needs to happen with the industry as a whole and not just with Apple, because the public sector's interest can't be just improving Apple's product.

Regarding Google, I'm not sure whether there's no issues there because their implementation is working so well or not working at all. Neither the Pixel watch nor Galaxy smartwatches have car crash detection, although both seem to have fall detection.

And good for us that apple is using their own tech advantage to bring life saving tech, such as emergency satellite SOS, to the masses.

Yeah, absolutely. I still don't think deploying a proprietary system to the public at large to call for help in an emergency is a good idea, however well intentioned it may be. I don't think it's good public policy to have an Apple emergency centre and a Google emergency centre and a Samsung emergency centre etc etc etc

Granted the same could be said about previous existing systems run by Garmin, for example, but frankly as long as this was a niche thing it's a different kind of question.

 

[I7guy]

Well the product in its current form is obviously flawed. We don't know how big of a problem it really is, but it seems big enough in combination with certain use cases. This needs to be fixed.

That will probably require certain things that are entirely within Apple's remit: collect more data, run simulations, improve the algorithm and the model etc etc etc.

The other part is working with the public sector to address broader issues and actually understand the scale of the problem, whether there's other concerns that need to be addresses and make the various systems work together more seamlessly. That's the part where I think this needs to happen with the industry as a whole and not just with Apple, because the public sector's interest can't be just improving Apple's product.

Regarding Google, I'm not sure whether there's no issues there because their implementation is working so well or not working at all. Neither the Pixel watch nor Galaxy smartwatches have car crash detection, although both seem to have fall detection.

We don't really know what's being done behind the scenes. But this tech will never be 100% and we will have to accept that. There will be alerts when there shouldn't and no alerts when there should be. If things worked perfectly and systems were perfect and humans were perfect, aircraft wouldn't fall from the sky. I'm sure Sonny Bono would have liked there to be an iphone 14 with crash detection. So it's not so much as flawed as needing to be tuned.

Yeah, absolutely. I still don't think deploying a proprietary system to the public at large to call for help in an emergency is a good idea,

Sometimes getting private enterprise involved to bridge a gap is what is required.

however well intentioned it may be. I don't think it's good public policy to have an Apple emergency centre and a Google emergency centre and a Samsung emergency centre etc etc etc

It may not be, but it's worse to not have any emergency center.

Granted the same could be said about previous existing systems run by Garmin, for example, but frankly as long as this was a niche thing it's a different kind of question.

So as long as it's a small private emergency center, it's ok?

 

[falainber]

My whole day is managing crash notifications," I call BS. ALL DAY?? lets see there is 60 minutes in an hour. How many people with apple products are skiing and CRASHING hard enough to trigger. ALL DAY??? And everyone is deaf and can't hear or feel on their wrists the alarm. Apple is doing it right. Go there and watch I bet its not ALL Day!! Drama Queen.

You just don't get it. Apple devices call 911 without any crashes. Andby all reports they do it very often.

 

[I7guy]

You just don't get it. Apple devices call 911 without any crashes. Andby all reports they do it very often.

Ever hear of takata airbags? Whats your point? That this function has to be tweaked.? That we as a society will have to put up some false positives and true negatives? That no tech is 100%?

 

[tbitson]

I had an incident where my Apple Watch detected a “hard fall” one night while I was sleeping. Since I didn’t cancel it, it contacted the local police and they showed up at 1AM. Their banging on the door woke my wife and she had to ensure the police I was ok. I slept the whole ordeal.

 

[d686546s]

We don't really know what's being done behind the scenes. But this tech will never be 100% and we will have to accept that. There will be alerts when there shouldn't and no alerts when there should be. If things worked perfectly and systems were perfect and humans were perfect, aircraft wouldn't fall from the sky. I'm sure Sonny Bono would have liked there to be an iphone 14 with crash detection. So it's not so much as flawed as needing to be tuned.

I didn't say it had to be perfect, I said it had some kinks that needed to be worked out. My view was that:

If it turns out that this is an isolated problem with certain activities, Apple can either refine the algorithm or geofence certain locations, or maybe the call centres can introduce certain procedures that just screen these calls out.

If it's a bigger nationwide problem, Apple needs to go back to the drawing board.

I think this absolutely needs to be taken seriously, but without hard data it's really just anyone's guess.

Call it 'tuning' or whatever makes you comfortable, but if a product keeps overloading local 911 capacity and regularly diverts resources away from actual need -- it's flawed either in design or implementation. That doesn't mean it's fatally flawed, nor that it's not worthwhile.

When I was still in EMS around 90% or higher of the calls we got through emergency bracelets were unnecessary because people pressed them in error, weren't quick enough to cancel, didn't hear the dispatcher (that was before fancy smartwatches, the only speaker was on the base station next to the landline), or even because they pressed because they were lonely and had some cake to share (true story). But that was an established system and the expectation and was dealt with accordingly.

The Apple solution needs to work this out. It doesn't have to be perfect and never will be, but as the provider Apple can't just let this be someone else's problem either.

So as long as it's a small private emergency center, it's ok?

Well in my book emergency services should all be public and accessible to all, but you have to pick your battles. The world isn't black and white.

That being said, there's a reason you can call 911 from any phone, whether or not there's a SIM card in there, whether or not your provider has coverage as long as a provider has coverage.

Personally, if private companies like Apple and others want to run a satellite rescue service nationally they should have similar obligations and have a mandate to make their systems interoperable and free of charge. As you may guess I'm not a big fan of privatised healthcare.

 

[I7guy]

I didn't say it had to be perfect, I said it had some kinks that needed to be worked out. My view was that:



Call it 'tuning' or whatever makes you comfortable, but if a product keeps overloading local 911 capacity and regularly diverts resources away from actual need -- it's flawed either in design or implementation. That doesn't mean it's fatally flawed, nor that it's not worthwhile.

When I was still in EMS around 90% or higher of the calls we got through emergency bracelets were unnecessary because people pressed them in error, weren't quick enough to cancel, didn't hear the dispatcher (that was before fancy smartwatches, the only speaker was on the base station next to the landline), or even because they pressed because they were lonely and had some cake to share (true story). But that was an established system and the expectation and was dealt with accordingly.

The Apple solution needs to work this out. It doesn't have to be perfect and never will be, but as the provider Apple can't just let this be someone else's problem either.



Well in my book emergency services should all be public and accessible to all, but you have to pick your battles. The world isn't black and white.

That being said, there's a reason you can call 911 from any phone, whether or not there's a SIM card in there, whether or not your provider has coverage as long as a provider has coverage.

Personally, if private companies like Apple and others want to run a satellite rescue service nationally they should have similar obligations and have a mandate to make their systems interoperable and free of charge. As you may guess I'm not a big fan of privatised healthcare.

You called it flawed. It’s not flawed in the same way that aircraft fall out of the sky after 100 years of flying. You think we would have learned and can fix the various issues.

But crash detection does need to be tuned.

As far as privatized civil services, I guess that we live in different countries we have different views

 

[macfacts]

This gimmick is working as planned, it's reassuring iPhone users they bought the right smartphone.

 

[d686546s]

You called it flawed. It’s not flawed in the same way that aircraft fall out of the sky after 100 years of flying. You think we would have learned and can fix the various issues.

But crash detection does need to be tuned.

Yes I did, but I also explained what I meant by that. I never had any expectation of perfection.

As far as privatized civil services, I guess that we live in different countries we have different views

Probably.

 

[ApplesAreSweet&Sour]

Man, I hope this is something that can be fixed through tweaks to the Crash Detection algorithm.

If it's an issue with whatever new components they put in iPhones 14 and the 8th Gen lineup of Apple Watches, then this could end up in Apple having to disable the feature entirely, reimburse customers, replace devices, etc.

Lawsuit incoming either way as this is costing lives/money right here and now.

*Crossing fingers the fix can be done with updates.

 

[I7guy]

Man, I hope this is something that can be fixed through tweaks to the Crash Detection algorithm.

If it's an issue with whatever new components they put in iPhones 14 and the 8th Gen lineup of Apple Watches, then this could end up in Apple having to disable the feature entirely, reimburse customers, replace devices, etc.

I doubt that apple would reimburse customers or replace devices as I think one would have to prove conclusively they bought the 14 specifically for crash detection.

Lawsuit incoming either way as this is costing lives/money right here and now.

It doesn’t require much to initiate a lawsuit. Winning is another story.

*Crossing fingers the fix can be done with updates.

Probably.

 

[TracesOfArsenic]

"It just works" (because we didn't test it properly)

 

[russell_314]

Well, that’s pretty vague. Was it really an emergency? Lol

It was intentionally vague. I didn't feel like posting my medical information on a public forum that could be be read by anyone.

 

[russell_314]

Your logical fallacy is burden of proof

You said that the burden of proof lies not with the person making the claim, but with someone else to disprove.

yourlogicalfallacyis.com

Oh, and you can tack a straw man on to that, because nobody has claimed that anybody has died yet - just that the false alarms are creating a risk (we do have crystal clear evidence that the false alarms are happening, and it's not rocket science to see that dealing with false calls can cause risky delays).

It's up to the people advocating crash detection to prove that the benefits outweigh the risks - preferably before rolling the product out to millions of users.

A good start would be to compare the number of people dying in car crashes because nobody called the emergency services in time, vs. people who died when the emergency were called promptly but arrived too late (where any sort of false alarm can be a factor). Now, I don't claim to have the data, but thinking about it, the first will be something that happens occasionally out in the sticks where there are no passers-by to raise the alarm, while the majority of fatalities are going to be occurring in heavily populated areas with plenty of eyeballs but overloaded emergency services.

A handful of self-selecting anecdotes where crash detection happened to work spectacularly (which often don't actually prove that people would have died without crash detection) don't really cut it.

Wow, that's a lot of text to say you don't have anything other than just your opinion.

As I said, the Apple Watch has saved multiple lives, and this can be proven. Your silly argument cannot be proven. You can hate on Apple products all you want, but they are useful for the people who buy them

 

[didaho]

There’s a simple fix Apple could implement easily. It could just wait 30 seconds and see if the person starts moving on gps again before making the call. Or make the call then cancel it if the person is in motion.

That seems bulletproof, so obvious that I wonder why they didn't do it.
If there's a reason they feel they want to default to what they have, allow users to select a lower setting.
Perhaps prompt for such "We've detected you might be skiing (on a rollercoaster etc.) would you like to enable slightly negligent Nanny mode?"

 

[Fruit Stand]

It's not cringy or cringey. People hate on Apple for everything they do, but the Apple Watch has saved many lives. I'm sure the people that are here today because of their Apple Watch wouldn't think it's cringey. My Apple Watch alerted me to a medical condition where I needed emergency treatment. I can't say for sure it saved my life because I don't have an alternate person to test the other outcome but it sure helped me. I appreciate what Apple has done with the watch and I wear mine all the time!

I am sorry as much as I am here for Apple at times it’s also ridiculous to defend something that FIRST RESPONDERS are reporting is making their jobs MORE difficult.

Apple needs to temporarily use geo fencing to disable this functionality at Ski Resorts/Hills as well as amusement parks. It’s not that hard and very doable .

 

[Fruit Stand]

Wow, that's a lot of text to say you don't have anything other than just your opinion.

As I said, the Apple Watch has saved multiple lives, and this can be proven. Your silly argument cannot be proven. You can hate on Apple products all you want, but they are useful for the people who buy them

Just because something is saving lives doesn’t mean it’s also not having an opposite effect due to a higher number of accidental calls taking away from real emergencies.

No one is hating on Apple here, we are all just pointing out how irresponsible it is to continue pushing the narrative that this feature has saved lives without it having a negative impact in one way or another.

It’s not different than Tesla’s being the safest cars on the road yet they are out there with FSD with many reported accidents yet Tesla is in full denial.