The first success story is here just a few weeks after Apple’s new Emergency SOS service went live in the United States and Canada. After becoming lost in Alaska, a man used his iPhone 14 to send an SOS signal to a rescue team via satellite.
“Around 2:00 a.m. on December 1, 2022, the Alaska State Troopers were notified that an adult male traveling from Noorvik to Kotzebue via snowmachine had activated an Apple iPhone Emergency SOS via satellite on his iPhone after becoming stranded. In collaboration with local search and rescue teams, the Apple Emergency Response Center, and the Northwest Arctic Borough Search and Rescue Coordinator, the NWAB SAR deployed four volunteer searchers directly to the GPS coordinates provided by Apple to the Nimiuk Point area. The volunteer search team located and transported the adult male to Kotzebue. According to a post from the Alaska Department of Public Safety, no trooper injuries were reported.
What is Satellite SOS for Emergencies?
The functionality enables a user to connect directly with a satellite. The users will then be redirected to emergency services that can receive text messages. When attempting to call emergency services such as 911, the iPhone detects that the user is not within cellular or Wi-Fi coverage and launches a customized user interface to assist the user in navigating the SOS emergency service.
The aforementioned user interface indicates the location of the satellite in the sky and instructs the user to point the phone in that direction to connect. After establishing the connection, the individual is asked a series of questions to determine the nature of the emergency and obtain all pertinent information. The data is then transmitted via the same satellite to either an emergency response center or Apple’s SOS services.
The service is free for the first two years with the activation of an iPhone 14 and is expected to arrive in France, Germany, Ireland, and the United Kingdom later this month.
