What you're neglecting to mention (or perhaps intentionally leaving out) in your post is if you or your friends had the right iPhone with the version of iOS that supports the feature.
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iPhone's Satellite Feature Launched Two Years Ago Today, Remains Free
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There are other paid option, such as garmin. I understand garmin is for serious off the griders.
So answer me this. Where is the hue and cry for Garmin to open their services for free?
The reason there are no lawyers is there are no grounds for a lawsuit?
This doesn’t work without someone’s cell service. You don’t magically get service if neither provider is available. Unless they make the satellites 911 services free in addition to the current providers.
This is brilliant, but what I’m really waiting for is phone to satellite internet. Doesn’t T-Mobile have that already in a limited form?
You would pay for it if you had to decide within 127 hours whether or not to cut your arm off if you were trapped between two rocks. I think this is an awesome feature. And if I had to pay for it when I used it to save my life or the lies of others I think it's worthwhile.
There are also "devices and services" who only deliver the emergency/comm bit, but the services are expensive and so are the devices. Have way more forcus on a "rock solid service", better radios/beacons, battery capacity and so on.
As far as Garmin goes, I used their handheld for years, as they pretty much cornered the market. And then did nothing at all to improve their devices. Thankfully smartwatches, smartphones and the likes of Suunto will prevent them from that this time around, if not, they most likely would have repeated their - by the looks of it - preferred strategy. I prefer to go elsewhere to aid the competition. Unnoticeable, but still.
Little things like facts have never stopped sensational news stories before! Some "news" outlet will find some quote or something to make the story work.
IIRC, only if you have a duty to do so; a random person in general has no obligation legally to do anything; some state laws may have some limited requirements to help.
From TFA: "We (you and I, based on my previous column) already knew, for example, that ANY iPhone can be made to work with Globalstar."
That’s not proof, that’s hearsay. I read the article. One example of proof would be for apple to say it’s so.
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IDK what you’re looking for. Tim Cook isn’t going to swear on a stack of bibles that they intentionally crippled their phones.
People don't need to use satellite for anything that normally cell provides. So why would such a lightly used SOS text usage require need to pay per use? It not equivalent to a higher usage subscription.
IMHO the base SOS text to 911/AAA via satellite is an incentive for marketing the use of newer iPhones (14+).
Its not something that is perfect for all urgent situations, as they can work "in most geographic locations on the Earth's surface, as long as open sky and the line-of-sight between the phone and the satellite are provided "(wiki).
Between you, me and the wall, it's hearsay and good for internet fodder, but at this point unproven. And yes, I've read Cringley for a long time and have respect for his work...but people get things wrong.
Except in that previous column he didn't say that:
In technical terms it is my understanding that the Globalstar constellation has long had an extra 10 megabits-per-second of Block 53 bandwidth that has gone generally unused but available to a specific Qualcomm chipset. This strongly implies that such satellite capability wouldn’t be limited to the iPhone 14 but has probably been there all along for any phones using that chipset.
I might argue that any iPhone could be satellite-upgraded with only a firmware change, which of course is totally under Apple’s control.
Iphone 13
- Qualcomm X60 modems and SDR868 5G RF transceiver
- Qualcomm and Qorvo envelope trackers
- Broadcom and Skyworks front-end modules
So it sounds like my conclusion Cringley was blowing smoke may be correct.