I hope this comes to the UK and that after the 2 years is included in the Apple One subscription.
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What You Need to Know About Apple's Emergency Satellite Feature for iPhone 14
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If you are taking the person as a single lump - yes.
But if the person's body gets slowed by the airbag, yet their watch-wearing arm slams hard into the dash or whatever, you might see a very high g on the device, with a survivable g on the rest of their body. Similarly with the phone which could fly directly into the dash or windscreen at high speed.
Hopefully regulators eventually step in and make this just like 911, where you can always access it regardless of the status of your plan. Charging for this is stupid, especially considering the average user will probably never use it once for the entire lifespan of their phone.
Not necessarily the same thing. In many countries, you can still get emergency treatment even if you don't have insurance. You may just have to pay for it 100% yourself. In the iPhone emergency satellite scenario, if someone didn't pay for the service, they would be out of luck.
Having said that, there is no reason why Apple should have to offer this service for free indefinitely. Other emergency services like 911 aren't free either as they are paid for through taxes and/or phone bill fees whether someone uses it or not. The logical way for Apple to cover the cost (and yes, potentially profit from it too) would be through an optional subscription fee.
it's more likely Globalstar is the ones that want to charge for it than Apple.
The point you miss is that another device is not needed and a fee is not needed. So yeah it’s innovative.This technology has been available for years in other devices. Nothing innovative really. Anyone who treks around in isolated areas have been able to buy devices to use for a long, long time.
Personal Locator Beacons: How to Choose | REI Co-op
Learn the difference between a personal locator beacon (PLB) and a satellite messenger, and which emergency signal device might be right for you.www.rei.com
Step in and make who access what regardless? You want regulators to step in and make emergency satellite communication available for free to every company that offers it? Or only apple?
I would say, a company should do what they have to do to sell product. Some will buy and some won’t.
I agree with this. I was not saying whether Apple is right or wrong to exploit peoples fears to sell products. Just stating the fact that it's what they're doing and that it's a change in marketing strategy compared to years ago. My earlier comment referred to an article with the headline, "Apple used to sell wonder, now they sell fear." It's true. Now a lot of their marketing is about heart attacks, car crash, stranded in the mountains, etc. Maybe they are already showing restraint and could manipulate people even more if they wanted.
You may be able to always access 911 but it is still being paid for through taxes and/or phone bill fees. If governments decide to make emergency satellite services a requirement, they should also cover at least some of the costs (to Apple, Globalstar, T-Mobile, SpaceX, etc.) through taxes and/or other fees.
this shows you have no clue of the absurd costs of maintaining and providing this satellite service.
Is the gas really $8? That has me rethinking my future purchase plans. Bummer. They look so cool parked at the mall.
Is you country gigantic with a very low population density and lots of places people can go and expect not to see another person for days to weeks? Does your country have independent municipalities in these areas which may not have the funding to cover these issues? Is your county in trillions of dollars of debt? Because different countries are different and sometimes that explained their differences not just random preferences.
I don't expect anything from a publicly held company. But optics and PR do matter.
I would not be surprised if Apple has it's own more robust satellite paid service, similar to Starlink within two years and they're able to make emergency satellite calling a standard feature for all.
The difference is there isn't brand loyalty or love for health insurance. I'm not saying Apple is obligated, but I think they may reconsider for emergency situations. I'm sure they'll find a way to still monetize it somehow (one time fee for emergency use or they'll have a robust satellite network in two years time that's paid, but emergency use is free for all with compatible iPhone).
I guess we will have to see what happens after two years once the first round of subscriptions lapse.
Impact G’s are indeed different as you say! That amount of force is not possible at speeds reached by a rapidly decelerating consumer car, except in the split second when a person or object reverses their direction of movement! Upon impact, the driver will experience incredible forces, but nothing close to 200 G’s until… CRACK, their head (or watch) hits the steering wheel. Those 2-3 milliseconds of rapid deceleration are so quick in that instant that an accelerometer could easily register in the 200’s in a nasty crash. Airbags work because they spread that deceleration over a time scale hundreds of times longer, limiting peak g forces to survivable levels! Still won’t feel good though haha
Here’s a surprisingly comprehensive article on it! Keep in mind that survival in a high speed car crash depends on the driver wearing their seatbelt and the airbag deploying! Both of these together reduce the g forces experienced by the driver tremendously, but wouldn’t change the experience of the watch on their wrist
The Physics of a High-Speed Crash: 70 MPH vs. 85 MPH
So, Texas wants to raise the speed limit to 85 mph. What do I think? Well, to tell you the truth, I usually drive 5 mph under the speed limit. I change this driving habit when my wife is in the car. Then I go the speed limit. But the real question (actually there are […]
T-Mobile is going to try to use a 5G wide band for the sat communications. In theory it should be possible.
Any phone that chooses to include a satellite feature with any sort of paid service should be required to be able to access 911 without any subscription, yes. It’s pretty silly that anybody is defending anything to the contrary. Somebody could die while holding a tool capable of calling for help in their hand just because they aren’t paying a subscription, that isn’t right. Very few people are going to pay a subscription on the off chance something goes wrong, and people can be in situations where they are miles from cell service without totally going out of their way to get into this situation. (Ex: a road near where I live has a 3 mile stretch with no cell phone service, and it is a route to the biggest nearby town… if you broke down in the middle of that and were severely injured…)
If Apple didn’t want to deal with these questions and implications then maybe they should not have spent years of R&D to put this feature in their phone with the intent to charge for it. If Samsung or Google follows suit I will say the exact same thing about them.
If Apple does have its own satellite paid service in a few years, the emergency connectivity feature may be "standard" but it won’t truly be free. There is overhead that has to be covered one way or another. 911 isn't free, satellite internet isn’t free and this wouldn't be free. Even if made mandatory by governments, it would still presumably have to be paid for, at least in part, through taxes and/or other fees.
Very few are going to pay $100 just for emergency satellite usage. IMO, Apple are likely seeing how much it's costing them over the next two years to their satellite partner supplier, then they'll make a judgement later.
But again, it's an edge-case super-rare emergency usage facility, making it a good extra incentive to push users on to higher iCloud+ tiers, but unlikely to garner extra annual fee separately for.
Gotcha. I got that info from the macrumors feed, that's why i thought it was a chat with emergency services that gets relayed to an actual rescue org. That makes sense though.