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Yikes! I myself feel guilty of this as rushing to work early in the morning I placed my phone on top pf my car as I was getting in and as I was driving I realized I did not have my phone on me. Drove back home, not finding it I used Find My and was able to locate it a few streets down. It had fallen off the roof of my car and triggered the emergency thing and that it had called a random number on my contacts at 4 am because I had to set it up. I felt terrible besides being late for work looking for my phone.
Amazing feature, just needs some tweaking.
RanDom number? So it calls randomly any contact you have???
 
Are other products like the Pixel phones having the same issue or just Apple's products?
Unlikely, crash detection on Android is limited to models Pixel 3 and up, which are a small slice of overall Android sales. Samsung and the like have not licenced it or come with their own yet.

Also, the crash detection functionality is disabled by default (while it's enabled by default on capable iOS devices) - I actually had to google my way to it on my Pixel 4a, it's within the safety app rather than the device settings.

There have been some crash simulations to compare the two detection functionalities, Google's version does not do better than Apple's, but Apple decided to make it a strong point by having it on by default, so we're hearing about the false-positives due to the sheer volume rather than because it's worse than Google's (even though it sounds like all options are half-baked right now).
 
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It definitely needs a trigger from the car. If the car does not trigger the feature ON, then it should remain OFF. Apple cannot expect software programmers to get this correct, they need good engineering on a different level than just programming. Another poster mentioned requiring the iPhone be paired with the cars BT in order to be activated to watch for a crash. But they still would need to consider other methods of crash detection for scenarios other than being in a car. What if a car strikes you when you are a pedestrian, for example. Or what if a tree branch breaks off and crushes you to the ground. Apple clearly has done another half-a$$ed job of fully thinking this through.
Maybe you can give feedback at feedback at apple dot com. Because obviously this feature was slapped in without testing. /s
 
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I accidentally (lightly) banged my Watch Ultra against a wood door frame and it asked me if I was in an accident or had a fall. At least there, I was given a chance to override.
Crash Detection offers an override as well. I think the delay is 10 seconds. Which seems short maybe? The issue with skiing is they often will have their phone buried deep in a backpack or under a bunch of layers of clothing and don’t get to it in time or don‘t even hear the warning sound.
 
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I honesty wonder if this technology had been in more hands.. How many people in Buffalo, NY could have been saved.
 
The same thing that will happen if you have an older iPhone.
No, it’s not the same thing. It’s reasonable to NOT expect an iPhone 13 or earlier to not call 911 in the event of a crash. It’s not reasonable to expect an iphone 14 to not call 911 regardless of the electronics or lack thereof in a car.
 
I honesty wonder if this technology had been in more hands.. How many people in Buffalo, NY could have been saved.
Currently more probably die due to false calls :/
I was also not a fan of it, expected lots of false positive calls because it has been enabled by default and not alligned to car Bluetooth or at least any kind of maps driving
 
Can you elaborate on what secrecy is causing the mistaken calls here?

Or how less secrecy would make this perform better?
Apple’s obsession with secrecy over all else prevents them from properly testing their features in the real world. Additionally, bugs happen and no company can prevent them. However, because Apple has chosen to place secrecy above all else, when these bugs are reported, instead of making a reasonable response (we’re aware and are trying to track it down and we’ve made some optimizations in iOS 16.2), they rigidly follow their “keep everything secret,” approach to support: erase and reinstall then RTA to engineering to be told to keep your device up to date.
 
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Currently more probably die due to false calls :/
I was also not a fan of it, expected lots of false positive calls because it has been enabled by default and not alligned to car Bluetooth or at least any kind of maps driving
I see your view. I just get frustrated that more and more we can make some so sophisticated to hurt\kill people yet it appears we learned nothing and cannot help people at a high degree. We can hurt more people then help. Just ahhhh! lol..
 
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Sami, I would recommend proofreading before publishing. Some of your sentences there straight up don't make sense.
 
Yikes. Especially when this is pretty much the standout feature for 14.
(The processor in 13 just wasn't quite powerful or efficient enough to make it a good user experience. Wait...)
 
Simple fix… initiate detection ONLY when a user is using directions on maps
But this goes back to the old adage that you have the most accidents in places you are familiar with, where you most likely wouldn't be using Maps
 
But what if someone crashes badly with their mountain bike?

A better solution is to have an AirTag-like device that does the crash detection, that you can attach to your bike or in your car, and which notifies detected crashes to the nearby phone for the 911 call. Really, the vehicles are in a much better position to detect crashes than a phone.

Post-crash behaviour is important too when determining if the crash was serious enough to warrant an emergency call. More easy to gauge that from a phone (which is likely to be on your person and which you interact with frequently) than a device like an AirTag which could be easily forgotten.

Also, cars themselves are in a pretty good position to detect accidents (Airbag deployment = serious accident), and future models probably will have an emergency notification feature like this.
 
A good start would be to only do the 911 calling if the phone is paired to a car's bluetooth.
gonna have to give a hard no on this one. I’m legally unable to drive for medical reasons—I rely on Uber & this feature may save a driver’s life one day (or—not “literally” more importantly, but, on a deeper personal level—the lives of family members I ride with, none of whom have Bluetooth in their car).
 
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Really sad that this would’ve resulted in a major scandal a couple of years ago and now it’s just another of Apple’s seemingly never-ending **** ups. How you don’t think to test with such activities before launching such a feature with millions of people throughout the world is something that only the Apple of today can do despite charging more and more ✌️


You could. But I think this doesn’t apply when the device itself is responsible because this is totally a **** up by Apple, not the customer.
Honestly? I think Apple only got away with this like they have so far because it earned a lot of "good will" with other efforts focused on safety and medical responses. (EG. Lots of propaganda of all the lives saved with the Apple Watch's ability to warn of irregular heartbeats.)

Because the rest of their stuff worked properly and didn't overload emergency services with false alarms, people just trusted Apple to get this right. And now, they didn't!
 
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RanDom number? So it calls randomly any contact you have???
I think it called or texted the first number on my contacts alphabetically because I had not set up the feature. Also, I am not complaining about the feature. I think it is awesome, I am just commenting on what happened to me accidentally triggering the feature.
 
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Apple’s obsession with secrecy over all else prevents them from properly testing their features in the real world. Additionally, bugs happen and no company can prevent them. However, because Apple has chosen to place secrecy above all else, when these bugs are reported, instead of making a reasonable response (we’re aware and are trying to track it down and we’ve made some optimizations in iOS 16.2), they rigidly follow their “keep everything secret,” approach to support: erase and reinstall then RTA to engineering to be told to keep your device up to date.
So in other words, no concrete suggestions other than “more people” in the hopes that somehow replaces real world testing scenarios.

You don’t just throw people on to look at code.

If you had suggested something like a partnership (under NDA) with responders or a university program focused on safety testing I’d be happy to say you had a point.

Instead, you’re using “secrecy” as a hole to simply dump your gripes without any evidence of how secrecy has hampered development. I’m not a subscriber to wishcasting.
 
Even easier: if person continues to move then they’re not dead.
This scenario always makes me think what if some totally unscruplous person comes to the car wreck and steals the unconscious person's iPhone
 
I think it called or texted the first number on my contacts alphabetically because I had not set up the feature. Also, I am not complaining about the feature. I think it is awesome, I am just commenting on what happened to me accidentally triggering the feature.
I think that would be AES. Maybe they would save me so I can keep paying my student loans
 
The EU will be fining Apple heavily for this in a few years. Still loving my 13 Mini on 15.7.
 
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