This is an interesting sign of the way technology is headed. The new iPhone 14 has a feature that provides for emergency texts via satellite when out of range of a cellular or wifi connection.

Details here: Use Emergency SOS via satellite on your iPhone 14

There is also the suggestion that this may eventually be a paid service: "Service is included for free for two years with the activation of any iPhone 14 model. Connection and response times vary based on location, site conditions, and other factors."

It's not a substitute for a real PLB. (Yet?) On the other hand, there's probably 2 billion more people that have an iPhone than have a PLB.

This is definitely early days for this feature. Unclear how good it is right now. But just imagine what we may have in 5 years!

Sounds like they copied some Garmin inreach tech. I wonder if they will mess it up like airtags and airdrop

Another feature of the phone:

“Let friends know how remote you go. If you’re on an adventure without cell service, you can now use Find My to share your location via satellite so friends and family know where you are.“

Interesting, for sure. Sounds like you will be interacting with some sort of intermediary service, can't imagine how they woudl do it otherwise, which has to cost Apple money.

Wonder what the battery drain will be?

Globalstar is the partner. Apple has seemingly secured 85% of Globalstar's capacity.

SEC filing https://sec.report/Document/0001366868-22-000059/


Starlink (SpaceX) and T-Mobile announced they are going put up satellites next year, but going use the standard cellular bands. So sounds like putting cell towers in space effectively.

https://techcrunch.com/2022/08/25/t-mobi...ting-next-year/

The apple news is great, but I think the T-Mobile news has the potential of being even better because it will supposedly work with any semi modern phone on T-Mobile that has a "normal" plan. No pointing, no special phone, no special program. The iPhone 14 comes with this feature free for two years. I don't know what it will cost after that.

Doug

I have been working out of cell range for the last two falls in northern Canada as a Survival Consultant for a US TV Show and using my iPhone for supplemental topographical maps (Topo Canada) and air photos (Gaia GPS) when out in the field daily. Although it works well in airplane mode (we have no cell towers near us), I can say that you would not get more than two days' use out of a phone. I often come back at night and even my new iPhone 13 will often be down to 65% at the end of the day and that's just taking a few pictures and checking navigation from time to time each day. Heavy use will bring it down to 40%.

I think that emergency satellite connectivity will add to the phone's daily power use and it's one of the reasons I carry a beacon, GPS receiver and in my safety pack power pack to recharge my phone and beacon if stranded overnight.

I absolutely agree with your choices here.

With that said my guess is that it will be a small difference in daily power use -- I expect Apple was smart enough to have this transceiver powered down when not in use.

I cannot recall the last time I was off the pavement, with no cell signal, and with no ham radio repeaters in range. So far I have chosen not to buy a PLB or SEND. This feature (when I replace my phone) will probably influence me away from a PLB or SEND, assuming that my outdoors habits don't change much.

Apple states in https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT213426

"Emergency SOS via satellite might not work in places above 62° latitude, such as northern parts of Canada and Alaska."

So if that far north in Canada, probably wouldn't want to rely on just the iPhone anyway.

A few places on our farm with no cell signal. And using GPS on a even a decent phone seems to suck the battery down pretty quick.

Apple uses GlobalStar for this feature. GlobalStar does not have full worldwide coverage.

Starlink has limited coverage at the poles, Iridium has worldwide coverage.

Emergency SOS via satellite available today on the iPhone 14 lineup in the US and Canada

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2022/11/e...hone-14-lineup/

Seems France, Germany, Ireland and UK get access in December.


Edit: Also a review.

Apple’s Satellite Emergency SOS Feature: A Review & Deep-Dive Explainer

https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2022/11/apple-iphone-satellite-sos-emergency-explainer.html

First rescue reported.

Alaska Dept. of Public Safety, State Troopers, Public Information Office:
Daily Dispatch

More discussion here:
Apple's iPhone 14 Emergency SOS via Satellite Feature Saves Stranded Man in Alaska

Above 62° latitude too. Hopefully had a dedicated device aswell.

It is north of 62° latitude. However the second linked article has an error. Kotzebue is at about 66° north (NOT 69° as the article suggests).

Keep in mind that that part of Alaska is for the most part a very flat coastal plain. He likely had a good view of the southern horizon. The orbits of the GlobalStar satellites that the iPhone uses are optimized for the mid and lower latitudes where most of the worlds people live. In more northerly regions those satellites will be low on the southern horizon. Any hills or mountains to the south will tend to block the signal from the satellite. The 62° latitude that Apple quotes is no doubt a somewhat arbitrary figure based on your probability of seeing a satellite above the visible skyline. If this fellow had been in a more hilly (let alone mountainous) region, it probably would not have worked as well.

Yeah, here's the coverage maps.

https://www.globalstar.com/en-gb/coverage-maps

Seems Apple are using data+voice services, and not SPOT service which has far wider coverage.

I wonder if he wrote "FIRST!" in his satellite communication...jk

Another success. This time a car plummeted 300 feet with two occupants.

https://twitter.com/MontroseSAR/status/1602828980121325568

IEEE article on how cell phones becoming sat phones

Your Cellphone Will Be a Satphone

https://spectrum.ieee.org/satellite-cellphone

My iphone 12 mini (which I LOVED) took a swim off the side of a boat during a race in 40+ feet of water (i.e., too deep to easily get and didn't want to stop racing...). I therefore got an iPhone 14 to replace it. If you have one and you haven't tried the satellite emergency messaging demo, please do so. It is very neat.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT213426

slightly off topic but you folks appear to understand these issues:


i just spent a month in remote eastern oregon, out of cell range with my new iphone 14 pro. i turned off the cellular data, wifi, & bluetooth, yet when left 100% charged at night, it was near dead by morning. "Battery Level" chart in Settings showed a continuous drain throughout the night.

was this due to the GPS constantly searching? what should i do during my next visit?

thank y'all!!!!

Hard to say, wouldn't have thought it was GPS. Do iPhones show which apps where using battery power?

The only thing that keeps a modern smartphone’s battery from draining without any signal is “Airplane Mode” or turning it off.

Otherwise it spends a great deal of its battery power looking for cellular and wifi signals.

“Airplane mode” turns off the GPS, which makes the phone fairly useless for most backcountry tasks.

Depends on the phone, my GPS works in airplane mode (since its just a receiver) and OSMAnd lets you download maps for offline use so it doesn't need the cellular radio to get map data.

all very helpful. next trip north, i will test each option. airplane mode make sense, even if just sitting overnight. thanks kids!

Quite right! On iPhone, Airplane Mode turns off the GPS (or at least, it does so on every iPhone I’ve owned since the 3G). On other phones, this may or may not be the case.

That seems like a mighty fast battery drain, especially for a new phone. I've been using iPhones for years, currently using an iPhone 11, and I've never seen battery drain anywhere near that fast when not actively using the phone. Makes me think it is something other than just the GPS?

I would check to make sure you don't have some app running in the background? You can set things up so that it only uses the GPS ("location services") only when you are actively using an app.

And yes, when an iPhone is in Airplane mode it does turn the GPS off.

i've had this 14 pro (max) for a few months. it has always had great battery runtime, no issues. only problem to date has been when i was out-of-range. and yes, ALL other apps were turned off (nothing running in background).

my guess is that it could have been the GPS, so will use airplane mode next summer when i head back north. if that doesn't do it, i'll check under the BATTERY LEVEL chart to see what did draw it down. thanks everyone!

Remember though that Apple has been caught still using cellular radios even when turned off so off may not mean off.

Another one:

Man saved by iPhone technology after car plummets 400 feet over cliff on Mt. Wilson

He was out of cell phone range, so the automatic crash alert went via satellite.

I navigate in the backcountry with iphones in airplane mode. It does not turn off gps in iphone 5s (several trips in Colorado) or iphone SE1 (John Muir Trail thru-hike).

good to know. thank you.

Interesting. Turned on my SE3 in airplane mode, location services on and walked outside to use the Maps app that came with the iPhone. The location came in showing lat-long, but no map. it doesn't need much, the base map with no additional detail would be good, but a bare page with nothing but the lat-long coordintes showing is a bit too bare bones to be useful.

My Garmin Geko has more usefulness because I can add waypoints as reference points.

Any better apps out there that show map features when in airplane mode?

https://osmand.net/

https://caltopo.com/

Are two offline map apps I hear of the most.

Thanks, that might work.

Airplane mode for offline map use must be used with offline maps like geospatial pdf's and apps that use offline maps. Currently, I make my geospatial pdf with caltopo (desktop browser) and add the map to topomaps (iOS) for use in the field.

The most common app used these days for this is gaia gps for making the map and field use. Farout (formerly known as Guthook) is another commonly used app for buying maps. Caltopo can now do the same. There are other apps that can read geospatial pdf's, like Avenza and others.

You can't test offline maps use with google maps or apple maps, unless you have made the map for offline use.

How do .pdf maps work with the iPhone's GPS. Is your position shown on the map? If it's just a replacement for a paper map, I'll go with paper.

I'm looking at this to replace a Garmin GPSMAP 64sx. If an interactive map isn't available, then I'll just stay with a dedicated GPS.

Yes, your position is shown on the map. Forgot to mention an offline mapping app for Colorado named Cotrex.

You can test out how they work in just a few minutes by making a pdf map of your home location (I only use caltopo right not), uploading to your phone (or just using the caltopo app). It might can all be done on the phone although Caltopo has been taking features away from the phone that may be on their desktop website, because they have paid subscriptions for more full-featured use.

I don't know any way to have an iPhone project a GPS location onto a document like a PDF.

There are apps that can download map files and render a GPS location onto a moving map display, but they don't use PDF.

ATAK/CivTAK will do it, or atleast Android version will. iPhone version of ATAK isn't as feature complete afaik so don't know it if iTAK can yet.

https://www.civtak.org/download-atak/ or register and get it from https://tak.gov/ (anyone can register, I have an account).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMRLr9Ax6h8

Starlink Direct to Cell

https://direct.starlink.com/

Texting via satelite from regular LTE phones coming next year, and voice year after.

That will be really cool.