https://9to5mac.com/2023/08/09/family-rescued-wildfires-maui-iphone-satellite/?
With iPhone 14, Apple introduced Emergency SOS via Satellite, which lets users contact emergency services in places where there’s no...
“Family that could afford $800 phone rescued from fire while others perish”.
Wealth often buys better odds of survival.
You don't need an $800 phone to be rescued - there are cheaper devices with the same capability (in fact, they often have larger antennas and are much more reliable in low signal situations).
The thing is though - most people don't even know Personal Locator Beacons are a thing, let alone own one, let alone have one on their person when they need it. People do, however, take their phone everywhere.
Hopefully soon this feature will be free and mandatory on all phones, just like the ability to call 911 even if it means roaming on another network for the call.
A little planning for your family goes a long way. I volunteer with local emergency services (police and fire). Besides it being fun, it’s also because these services will have first access to emergency supplies in a disaster. Which means my family will also have that before others.
Like I said, planning ahead counts.
For sure - they did the same thing for the Apple watch. Twice, actually.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRwkZWowI8o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOHj5kGU4fY
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=XRwkZWowI8o
https://piped.video/watch?v=fOHj5kGU4fY
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
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Is the satellite function free to use? I haven’t read into it and it’s super convenient for its use cases but also seems like it would cost a lot to maintain contracts and backend for the feature.
TLDR. There’s no pricing after 2 years yet.
Probably get 2 years with every phone purchase. I’d have no problem subscribing to it regardless.
I have a family and little kids. I’d never even consider not paying for a service like that if it could save our lives.
I would think it would be nominal.
Stories like this are marketing gold and all it would take is one “Apple charges $$$ per year and we decided not to pay it so all of my kids died” story to ruin all of those warm fuzzies.