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Thurayya satellite system https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thuraya https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thuraya Theye recently got Android phones too https://www.am

• lxgr 5y ago
  Skipping the Americas does not sound like a typical Apple move. My bet is on Iridium (or possibly Globalstar, although that would be a pretty un-Apple like compromise in quality too). Inmarsat is the only other option, but I think antenna size/directionality would exclude that as well.
  • baybal2 5y ago
    Iridium, and Globalstar are low earth orbit systems needing very different radio hardware. It may sound super counterintuitive, but providing a stable link to a geosynchronous satellite on a handheld hardware with tiny antenna is easier than with fast flying low earth orbit satellites. And I doubt't that voice communications, or even Internet service would be there, just SMS, or pager like functionality most likelly.
    • lxgr 5y ago
      Very different than what? Iridium modems are among the smallest satellite transceivers available, much smaller than GEO ones. Looking at something like the Garmin InReach shows what‘s possible with Iridium, and I imagine Apple would be throwing a lot more money at the technical/design constraints.
      • detaro 5y ago
        Transmitting short few-byte messages like the InReachs vs making phone calls as claimed here?
        • lxgr 5y ago
          Phone calls would be surprising, but in a way that seems vaguely plausible based on current technology. GSM phones used to have large external antennas too, until one day they simply didn‘t anymore.
        • detaro 5y ago
          addendum: does anyone know if those actually have different requirements? obviously calls are more data and thus need more energy, but from a quick search through public documentation I don't find a clear claim that the Short Burst Data service actually uses a less-demanding encoding.
      • baybal2 5y ago
        > Very different than what? Than system communicating with geostationary sats. Training the circuitry onto one weak, but stable satellite signal is much easier than keeping readjusting, or communicting with multiple satellites at once. Just like with the GPS, the trick is the super duper accurate, and stable frequency reference.
        • lxgr 5y ago
          Iridium (which is LEO) uses omnidirectional antennas.
          • baybal2 5y ago
            And it loses the signal frequently if you move
  • Gaelan 5y ago
    > Skipping the Americas does not sound like a typical Apple move. I know of one place where Apple does this: in China, and only China, you can buy an iPhone with two physical SIM slots. You can do Dual SIM on iPhones elsewhere, but only with an eSIM.
    • gambiting 5y ago
      I know, it's incredibly annoying, I'd love a dual SIM iPhone but you simply can't buy one in the EU other than a grey import from China without warranty. And no, neither of my two operators support eSIM.
      • gorbypark 5y ago
        I recently saw a Youtube video of someone who bought the sim card "daughter board" and sim tray from a Chinese iPhone and put it in a non-dual sim iPhone and it just worked. I can't remember the channel but it was from one of the fairly popular phone repair ones, so it should be pretty easy to find. The only real downside is that you have to open up your phone to swap the daughter board out and all that entails (the risk of breaking something, warranty, waterproofing, etc)
• tim333 5y ago
  Thuraya isn't low earth orbit though.
• exikyut 5y ago
  https://phonedb.net/index.php?m=device&id=14233&c=thuraya_x5-touch_dual_sim_td-lte https://phonedb.net/index.php?m=device&id=14233&c=thuraya_x5... Features: - Released end of 2018 - 2GB RAM, 16GB storage - Android 7.1 - $1,200 - C H O N K score: 2.46cm thick