And that's what many will never get, as they feel entitled to get "free stuff" whenever possible.
It's almost as if it's a badge of honor figuring out ways to make that happen - where "others" pay.
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Apple's Emergency SOS via Satellite Feature Saves Family Caught in Maui Wildfires
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And that's what many will never get, as they feel entitled to get "free stuff" whenever possible.
It's almost as if it's a badge of honor figuring out ways to make that happen - where "others" pay.
I still find this ghoulish but it is significantly better than refusing to put the emergency message through at all. They better go this route if they don’t scrap charging for it.
Heavy smoke does interfere with sat signals. Even wildfires themselves affect sat signals, due to heat. I remember watching a doc about wildfires.
Quick googling
"The FCC has regulations to ensure that 911 calls are accepted by all providers, even if you don't have a phone plan. This feature was introduced back when GSM standards were created in the 1990s. You can make an emergency call with no service, as long as there is a cell phone tower nearby, and you're using a local SIM."
My question is "who is the provider?". I will believe that it works. I just don't know who is accepting and passing the call to 911. Going to assume it was the last provider for that device. So if you stopped paying for a plan, and left the phone in you desk draw. Charged it up one day way after canceling the plan on it. And made a 911 call. It would just work via the last provider for the device. Or if you're not able to connect to that provider anymore (in a given area). The next available cell tower for another provider will accept the call and pass it through.
Just read that. I'm still wondering how it works. Like if your previous carrier is going to process your call. Or if your carrier isn't available on that tower. Which carrier passes along the call.
I completely agree. I'm sure Apple will figure something out in the 1+ year they have left on this.
Whom in Germany will service the call? How is it getting routed to emergency services?
Thanks!
Now everyone, gather round, let’s all just form a big circle ⭕️, hold hands, and sing kumbaya, and give thanks that we have the technology to rescue people nowadays.
We know it isn’t “free”, we also would like to point out that the cost of a rescue is likely far cheaper than the cost to society when lives are lost.
We know it isn’t “free”, we also would like to point out that the cost of a rescue is likely far cheaper than the cost to society when lives are lost.
I think the right move for Apple once the two years of free use is up would be to make it a fee-per-use feature. For instance, it could be set up to bill your Apple account automatically for $5/message if/when you use it. Or whatever the necessary cost would be in order to break even on the overhead required for the service. They would just need to make it very public that they are charging an amount that allows the service to pay for itself and no more.
Maybe I’m oversimplifying it but I thought they got the T’s because they and Jobs especially relentlessly pursued the user experience above all else, did things nobody else could do (like get at&t to sell a crapware-free phone) and let the money naturally follow. Charge a premium for an experience that was clearly better.
Now it seems that philosophy is slipping away and the user experience is secondary to the business objectives.
Just with regard to the duty to assist thing, you could still be sued for / charged with criminal negligence or similar if you could have done something but didn’t and someone died.
Can't we just dip a bit into the billions and billions of dollars going to Ukraine and fund this?
Please Joe? Just divert a tiny bit?
Answer is no. Nice.
Please Joe? Just divert a tiny bit?
Answer is no. Nice.
I'm a human. I have a soul. That philosophy is what saw a young college art student buy into Apple in the 90s. In the end, I'm not sure that played much of an actual role in Apple joining the T party. From my perspective (which is also oversimplifying), that evolution is much less about Apple and almost entirely about The System - which, unfortunately, is working exactly as designed (stupid shareholders). Capitalism blows.
they are probably paying a lot for launching satellites, they have to recover that money some how.
Maybe the pharma companies could get the ball rolling by making their drugs available free of charge for the asking.
Compared to a system where everyone is taxed at the exact same rate.
If the top 1% were taxed the same as the remaining 99% of us, we'd almost eradicate *******ry. Almost.
I can not. I just know that zero taxation for the wealthiest is absurd.
Maybe I'm naive to the way life works, but I find it dubious that anyone, anywhere, could just be leisurely cruising down a highway and have wildfires "suddenly erupt" around them.
Here's the funny twist on this conversation...if Apple offered this service for Free, and put other companies out of business, like Garmin, etc...then the same people saying it should be free would be yelling about Apple's anticompetitive behavior
Garmin has a following that rivals Apple..not in size, but in loyalty. Apple won't put them out of business. I'm still a HUGE fan of Garmin, and still wish my watch did several things my previous Garmin's world to.
Nothing is free - you pay for it somehow. Apple may decide to cover teh cost without raising prices, but then you pay for it in not getting a lower prices with an option to by the service separately.
Or, offer a membership for $X or single calls at some multiple of X.
Right, the key is all providers.
IIRC, it is irrelevant whose antenna you connect to, as long as you can get a signal. Ho your original provider was is irrelevant.
You can be sued for anything, but in general you have no duty to assist and thus there is no negligence or civil liability, unless you fall into a special category or started to help and thus must finish. Of course, as with anything, there are cases where a court has decided someone's behavior was so outrageous they have found some liable and some states may have laws covering when assistance is required; which is often just calling for assistance.
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Wild fires can travel very fast. Especially short-grass fires. And the wind can change quickly. What may seem like a safe road one minute can be ablaze the next.
I don’t know where you live, people in the western part of North America, Australia, Greece, or southwestern Europe know when fuels are bone dry and there’s wind, fires can spread as fast as the wind blows. And when these fires get large enough they can produce their own winds, so if the wind is gusting 60mph, it can be even faster where the wall of flames is being pushed.
Reports have said the wind was gusting up to 70-80mph in Maui that day, you can see it in videos before the fire broke out. There were tree limbs down, and even damage to the buildings in Lahaina just from the winds (having lived there that’s something I’d never seen before). So try to imagine a wall of flame and embers coming at you as fast a car speeding down a highway at 80mph. How fast can a car cover a quarter mile at that speed? This is why these fires are so deadly around the world, people literally only have seconds to escape sometimes. Checkout this video to see how fast this fire was moving in Texas, where the winds weren’t near as strong as they were in Hawaii, and can be here in California.
Actually Hong Kong has a flat 15% income tax for everyone. For many years they had a budget surplus until pretty much China took over.