iPhone 14 users in the US (including Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands) and Canada will now be able to use the Emergency SOS via satellite feature. Following this, all the iPhone 14 owners in countries like France, Germany, Ireland and the UK will get the same feature by next month.
Speaking about this feature, it will allow users to get in touch with emergency services, especially in areas with no network services or Wi-Fi connectivity. As the name suggests, this is a feature designed for emergencies and we hope that you’ll never have to use it.
In order for this feature to work, users will first have to answer a small questionnaire which will ask for vital information such as – what is the emergency, how many people need help and other such details. These questions and answers will then be forwarded to the emergency services which will receive the text or the Apple centres which will then make a call.
Apart from the question answers, the smartphone can also forward the user’s Medical ID, this depends on whether the user has set it up. The Medical ID will have all the information about the user. Information like all the health conditions they have so (this could include any allergies or serious medications required) that the rescuers will be informed about the same.
The user will then receive a message clarifying the same and get help. Apple has developed a compression that squeezes text by 300 per cent, even after doing this the smartphone will require 15 seconds to send a message. This is because satellite data is low bandwidth.
When setting up, users will have to put in at least 10 iMessage emergency contacts who will get the emergency texts.
While setting up with the satellite mode, the phone will first show a demo mode which will get you ready for emergency times.
Apple had also mentioned another feature which can be used instead of this iPhone’s Find My’s new feature. Both this feature and the Emergency SOS feature are available on iPhone 14 series which includes, iPhone 14, iPhone 14 Plus, 14 Pro and 14 Pro Max. In order for these features to work, it is expected that users at least have the latest iOS version, iOS 16.1 or above.
Models from China, Hong Kong or Macao do not support these features, other than this will also not work above 62-degree latitudes such as in northern parts of Canada and Alaska.
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