You Can Send Texts via Satellite in iOS 18

[Baywatchboy]

It's actually a federal law that cell phone companies have to pass-through 911 calls in the US even if service is not active. That is one reason your phone will say "SOS" when it can't reach your particular cell provider -- when "SOS" appears, it means it can reach another provider that will let your dial 911.

This, by the way, is not true with Satellite services. For example, if you have a Garmin Inreach, and discontinue service, you cannot reach emergency services.

That's why some women's shelters will accept old phones without service. The phones can still be used in an emergency.

 

[fyrfyter33]

Smart move: introduce a feature for free, make it even more useful and then charge for it. Satellite communication is very expensive so of course Apple won't just eat the cost.

I can even see then getting you make an emergency SMS and charge you afterwards

Charging for an emergency message is bad form. That’s like charging for an individual 911 call. There’s a reason there’s a 911 service fee on every cellular account now.

You may get charged later for the response and any care needed. I doubt you’ll ever get charged for any of the services messages. Clearly there aren’t enough so far to justify an added cost.

 

[I7guy]

Can you imagine the negative backlash if someone ever died in a car crash because they didn't opt in to a subscription. It would kill Apple.

I don’t think so. You are responsible for your well being. Or in MR terms the critics would pounce on apple while the supports would claim it’s up to the individual.

On the other hand, I can see that providing run-of-the-mill SMS messages over expensive satellites is a different matter that could attract a charge.

Could be.

 

[x-evil-x]

Interestingly they don't let you do that -- iPhone will only allow you to connect to Satellite if cellular and Wifi are on but neither has a signal. No way to fake it. This probably allows them to be confident their expensive Satellite bandwidth won't be overwhelmed by too many users at once.

Well then 5g shouldn’t have been out there then. Its range is so limited it probably had a lower signal it was holding onto. You can force only 5g in cellular and that would just drop the signal then. But not sure if it defaults to another one

 

[LV426]

I don’t think so. You are responsible for your well being.

For the best effect, you have to say that in an Italian accent. "You wanna buy dis expensive phone? Ba-da-bing, we give you all da protection you need. See you in a month for more protection. Capeesh."

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Calling emergency services works even without an active phone plan (at least in the US).

What the heck! That’s WILD! Today I Learned…

It just applies to Garmin devices and others like those, then. But, come to think of it, if a news reporter has the opportunity to add a dig at Apple in their report, we all know it’s going to happen.

“Their phone is capable of communicating with satellites but, as they hadn’t paid for that service, they weren’t able to use it when it was needed. If only Apple could have done something to save their life” is NOT a good take, but that’s the take everyone would make just for the clicks.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

With satellite messaging and RCS, would this move people away from using apps like WhatsApp and Messenger? Personally, I don’t see the attraction of WhatsApp, especially when everyone has unlimited messages in their phone plan (as far as I know)

No. No one is going to tear down their carefully crafted contacts network just because “RCS”. And, that vast number of folks using WhatsApp is just pulling more and more new users into that web daily.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Texting, voice calling, and video calling to people overseas. It uses WiFi (or data) so no limits or charges from cell phone carriers.

And some countries actually have based some of their governmental functions on WhatsApp since it includes a payment service AND shopping. Its tendrils run deep. A genius move to go in that direction by the original owners as now they’re such a part of some countries e-commerce fabric, it’s there for good.

 

[Sean Patrick]

Has anyone running the beta actually got a message to send through a satellite yet? I'm running the latest iOS 18 beta and went out into the mountains yesterday to test it out. The satellite interface came up, said I was connected and then it weirdly tried to send an SMS, not iMessage for whatever reason. It failed over and over again even even though I had a clear signal