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Elon Musk's SpaceX to Launch Satellites for Apple's Emergency SOS Feature on iPhones
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Globalstar's satellite fleet is pretty old.
"... In December 2006, Globalstar announced that Alcatel Alenia Space, now Thales Alenia Space in its Cannes headquarters, has been awarded a €661 million contract for the second-generation constellation. The satellites were designed with a life expectancy of 15 years, significantly longer than the design life of Globalstar's first-generation constellation. ...
...
The first six second-generation satellites were launched on October 19, 2010, ....
...
The launch of the second-generation constellation was completed on February 6, 2013, with the launch of the final six satellites using a Soyuz 2-1a launch vehicle
...
Globalstar - Wikipedia
2010 + 15 = 2025 . New MDA satellites going up in 2025. Coincidence ? ... probably not.
( Originally Globalstar was founded with help from Loral Space systems . ... and MDA bought up the remnants of Loral Space systems in 2012 ).
Apple's money isn't so much to expand service , but to keep them in the service business. Once all the 2nd gen satellites get used up there would be no service.
The last gen satellites were all lofted by the Russians. SpaceX is just launching stuff here ( Russians effectively wouldn't be options now at the moment anyway even if they were still the cheaper option). It isn't the satellite 'wing' of what they do.
Eventually Apple probably will charge... but two years of measuring just how much folks use it should give better idea of that kind of price point will hold. ( if used extremely infrequently by most, then probably can't charge a relatively large amount. )
We had in iPhone 14 up in the mountains in Central Asia earlier this year. No banana. You can't rely on it. Our InReach, Iridium and VHF comms were fine. We had someone with a back injury and had to split the group up and keep comms going, something you can't do with iPhone SoS. Had VHF HTs and SMS via InReach for that. There is no cell phone coverage there at all for 50 miles in any direction.
Geraldine Largay is a very poor example. She killed herself though incompetence on the trail. She had absolutely no idea what she was doing, no mapping skills and poor emergency and search skills. And worst of all she lost her GPS! Tie it to your bag with paracord ffs.
Edit: also what the hell are you going to do in half the planet after you've sent the message to Apple. Expecting a hoard of helicopters to romantically come and land somewhere and whisk you away? Not happening. Someone to trek up a mountain and get you? Not happening. 5 miles off the trail in thick woodland? Crikey that's a day long search party job.
Proper Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance. That means testing your gear, your planning and making sure you have training and the relevant skills before doing something.
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It's interesting I've seen that argument before on X. And I'd search their post history hating on Elon for taking gov subsidies for SpaceX and accusing Starlink doesn't work, only to realize it does then blame Elon for cutting off Starlink services for a certain country in need.
Then when SpaceX does good, they praise Gwynne/team and says Elon did nothing.
So blame Elon for bad stuff but praise the team for the good stuff? Amazing! Whatever mental gymnastics helps them cope with buying products that involve Elon I guess!
Globalstar's satellite fleet is pretty old.
"... In December 2006, Globalstar announced that Alcatel Alenia Space, now Thales Alenia Space in its Cannes headquarters, has been awarded a €661 million contract for the second-generation constellation. The satellites were designed with a life expectancy of 15 years, significantly longer than the design life of Globalstar's first-generation constellation. ...
...
The first six second-generation satellites were launched on October 19, 2010, ....
...
The launch of the second-generation constellation was completed on February 6, 2013, with the launch of the final six satellites using a Soyuz 2-1a launch vehicle
...
Globalstar - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
2010 + 15 = 2025 . New MDA satellites going up in 2025. Coincidence ? ... probably not.
( Originally Globalstar was founded with help from Loral Space systems . ... and MDA bought up the remnants of Loral Space systems in 2012 ).
Apple's money isn't so much to expand service , but to keep them in the service business. Once all the 2nd gen satellites get used up there would be no service.
The last gen satellites were all lofted by the Russians. SpaceX is just launching stuff here ( Russians effectively wouldn't be options now at the moment anyway even if they were still the cheaper option). It isn't the satellite 'wing' of what they do.
Eventually Apple probably will charge... but two years of measuring just how much folks use it should give better idea of that kind of price point will hold. ( if used extremely infrequently by most, then probably can't charge a relatively large amount. )
Yep, headline could have just as easily been "Apple's vendor's vendor now not Russian".
"Emergency SOS via Satellite is available in the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, the UK, Austria, Belgium, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand, and Portugal."
So functioned as expected
Musk is too mercurial to have as a partner in ANYTHING. Totally unreliable. Being unpredictable doesn’t make someone a savant. It just makes them bad business partners.
Exactly my point!
Incidentally ask yourself if it works on the Isle of Mann or Isle of Wight...
An emergency system is no good if there are so many constraints on the operation of it.
My bet is that it will be free with new phones for a year, available as part of Apple One, and/or be available as a single subscription for a few bucks a month.
Just a guess, but having it as part of Apple One just adds value there.
From what I’ve been able to find, what was originally expected to work via V2’s launched by late 2023 should be able to work using a modified V2 mini, still not launched. However, the current plan is for 5 satellites (awaiting FCC approval) which wouldn’t quite be the same as the “Coverage Above and Beyond” intended goals, but certainly a start towards that.
UPDATE: https://ts2.space/en/t-mobile-and-s...s-in-bid-for-comprehensive-wireless-coverage/
Interesting that the top hits for the “last month” according to Google were to stories from the same announcement in 2022… that were ostensibly updated within the last week
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Elon is so unhinged I can see him punishing Apple users if he doesn’t get his way.
“Cellphones are a terrible idea. Putting yourself in a situation where you may need to make an emergency call is crazy. Just don’t get into that situation in the first place and then you don’t need a cellphone for emergencies”
this is hilarious.
denying people (especially a certain country) who really need access to high speed internet because you didn't like seeing things fly around is stupid IMO.
spacex already dampened the reflections off of their satellites anyways. not really a big issue to astronomers.
i can't honestly take you seriously about the other points. it sounds like you're just restating what other media has falsely fed you.
you mean like opening up superchargers to all EV competitors so that you don't have to buy a Tesla if you want access to the best EV supercharging network in the world?
Doesn't Garmin offer an expensive insurance plan that covers some amount of search-and-rescue costs? If that works out to be a profitable business, expect some insurance company (one of Buffett's?), to offer such a plan. Apple could even add the insurance premium to their services revenue as another AppleCare option.
No kidding? You can't rely on something when it isn't launched in the region you want to you use it?
I'm not sure what the purpose of this statement is. You might as well have said "I didn't have my iPhone with me, so I couldn't rely on it".
Your condescending attitude notwithstanding, you know what she did have with her? Her phone.
If her phone had Satellite SOS, it would've been able to provide her exact GPS location and useful information about the circumstances she was in.
I can't go as far as state with certainty that she would've been alive today if she had an iPhone 14 series, but given the fact that S&R came extremely close to her actual location, I'd say it would've been pretty likely.
Rescue efforts being made is the implicit promise of the feature. What scope or form that takes will depend on the specific services responding, the region you're in and the circumstances necessitating aid.
That's why it's not available worldwide yet, because of agreements needing to be in place with dispatching agencies/companies that manage how, if and which services respond to an alert via Satellite SOS.
Were you under the impression that Apple just disabled the feature in certain areas because they want to stick it to people in that region?
No, they want to ensure there will be someone on the other end that will respond and render aid.
Your high and mighty attitude again blinds you.
Notwithstanding the fact that even pros and enthusiasts alike, can find themselves in situations that no amount of planning can prepare them for, you seem to forget that there will always be people that will find themselves unprepared for the situation at hand.
Whether that be due to their own fault, or due events beyond their power.
Survivors of a plane crash, people stranded at sea, leisure hikers getting wounded, drivers driving off a cliff, you name it. There are infinite permutations of situations in which people find themselves needing aid.
And in all of those cases, even the ones in which you think it's their own fault or worse, in which you think they deserve to die, having the Satellite SOS option, will always be a benefit.
To argue the opposite just seems foolish, because there is no reasonable argument to be made for removing that function.
Well, as an owner of an iridium phone…it sucks. near a tree, rainy day forget about it. And data? a snail could write it quicker.
what would be better is just working up a deal directly with musk to provide emergency cellular service and not need the third party, which it should have done in the first place.
Heck in fact, if it wanted, Apple could set up its own cellular service and just use starliink to get global coverage. There are plenty of cellular services around the world doing exactly that. In my country there are a couple of providers setting that up to service areas outside 5G/4G coverage, of which there are a lot.
Elon isn’t a part of any Apple supply chain as suggested. He’s providing a glorified taxi. He’s a bus driver at best
Tricky for Apple to charge. Not a great headline “person dies in remote area, didn’t pay subscription “.
No matter how many messages you type, you will never convince a single human that this is a bad idea. It’s already responsible for multiple lives being saved. Without this feature, they’d be dead. You’re literally arguing that they should be dead, which makes you a terrible person.
Yes, if you plan to go into a place without coverage, a satellite phone or beacon is the smart option. Been there, done that, and our team did need the sat phone on a few occasions. Planning to use a cell phone alone on an adventure like that is more risky, or stupid, depending on what you're actually doing.
However, there are a lot of places where there is a hole in the cell coverage. If you're just driving through, there's no sensible reason to have any kind of dedicated satellite system...I mean, you're just driving along the road, you don't plan to go anywhere else, so paying the costs for a satellite system in case of an accident just doesn't make sense. And, these places can be very close to civilization...there have already been several rescues in the San Gabriel mountains just north of the Los Angeles area where people went had an accident in one of the cell phone gaps. In one case the car went into a ravine and would not have been found without the SOS broadcast. It takes less than an hour to get into these areas from downtown LA, so we're not talking about going out into the middle of nowhere.
It's a great feature that has already saved lives when people had an issue outside of cell coverage. Considering how spotty that coverage can be, or how it can sometimes fail (cell towers do have failures leaving you suddenly without a connection), having a backup like this when you have no intention of going into the wild is really a worthwhile addition. And, really, this will be a standard feature of phones in the next 10-20 years.
It’s all in the wording “Sounds more promising”. I‘m going to invent free wireless internet with 2GB speeds, and 4ms ping. It’s much better than what we have now.
Having emergency SOS implemented and working now is better than what’s promised in the future, until it’s available.
Elon is just the delivery van in this case.