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If I’m reading this filing right, Apple have committed to using 85% of Globalstars satellite network capacity for the new emergency messaging feature. It’s seem

If I’m reading this filing right, Apple have committed to using 85% of Globalstars satellite network capacity for the new emergency messaging feature. It’s seems astonishing to me that they would be using this much bandwidth for that emergency feature, and (at least initially) only on a small portion of iPhones. My only thinking is that they may be planning to make the satellite network available to none emergency messaging too, and that’s what’s covered in this filing.

sschueller 4y ago
It's a great feature worth a lot of money to US law enforcement and co. Being able to track anyone regardless if they have cell signal. /s
wmf 4y ago
Or the capacity of the network is really low.
- wongarsu 4y ago
  According to Wikipedia they have 52 first-generation satellites from the late 90s, and 24 second-generation satellites from around 2010. And if we go by Iridium's lifetime I wouldn't expect the first generation to still be operational. Compared to Starlink's 2400 currently operational satellites that does seem low. Even compared to Iridium's 75 from the late 2010s, Globalstar's 24 seems small.
  - oneplane 4y ago
    It's the kind of 'low bandwidth' you'd see with analog telephone modems. A single JSON request-response over TLS would take many seconds.
    - walrus01 4y ago
      Current generation globalstar is about the same speed as first gen iridium, which is around the speed of a 2400 bps dialup modem from the late 1980s. With the current satellites, yes, if they think they have enough capital (at least many hundreds of millions) to launch a new clean sheet of paper design LEO network using the existing globalstar L/S-band spectrum licenses, they could implement something better. The value of globalstar is not in the existing satellites and earth stations, which are pretty much trash at this point for any modern use except very low data rate M2M data in certain geographically restricted areas. The value is in the existing LEO network operational licenses.
      - oneplane 4y ago
        Yep, similar value is found on other technically inept solutions that are mostly kept around to keep the license to operate active (since some of those require active use to retain them).
    - kylehotchkiss 4y ago
      The mentioned in the announcement developing a very efficient data codec for text compression, I'd presume something Binary and not over TLS, just raw data packets probably with some encryption
      - oneplane 4y ago
        I'm sure the Apple use case is different from a web api, but it was more for illustrative purposes. I imagine most developers know how to wrap data in JSON and how to do a HTTP call over TLS. When using that as a point of reference, having such a transmission take a long time might show how little bandwidth some M2M networks have (or need). I wouldn't be surprised if the current Globalstar network is so limited it wouldn't even do voice.
        kylehotchkiss 4y ago
        They support voice (https://www.globalstar.com/en-us/products/voice-and-data https://www.globalstar.com/en-us/products/voice-and-data), it's my understanding that it's analog and not digital though, like a really narrowband landline phone call
        oneplane 4y ago
        That makes sense. Satphones are probably using that same super low symbol rate used by M2M.
      - noway421 4y ago
        Given that they're transmitting an app form over to Apple's server, they could encode checkboxes with bitmaps and text fields with dictionary LZMA. There probably will be only a few bytes of the actual data per emergency submission + protocol authentication and error correction overhead.
  - mirekrusin 4y ago
    They say 85% so it must be 17 out of 20, no?
  - thrdbndndn 4y ago
    >I wouldn't expect the first generation to still be operational From Wikipedia: >In 2007, Globalstar launched eight additional first-generation spare satellites into space to help compensate for the premature failure of their in-orbit satellites. Between 2010 and 2013, Globalstar launched 24 second-generation satellites in an effort to restore their system to full service. So you're totally right.
  - Gh0stRAT 4y ago
    Slightly apples-to-oranges comparison on the satellite count. Unlike Globalstar, the Iridium network uses polar orbits which means they're covering a larger area and thus need more satellites to achieve comparable service in the limited latitudes that Globalstar covers. (that being said, if you're going to be in mountainous terrain, higher latitudes, far from land, etc then Iridium will have better coverage)
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
closetohome 4y ago
Apparently it works with Find My as well. I wouldn't be surprised if they started rolling out premium features that take more bandwidth once everybody's free two years expires.
- bombcar 4y ago
  This is it right here! The "emergency" part is a feel-good on top of the real service, which is location updates every X time even when off in no cell service land.
  - manderley 4y ago
    "every X time" meaning as often as you're willing to point your phone at a satellite and wait a few minutes for your location to transmit?
    - bombcar 4y ago
      That I don’t know - I could see it trying to send a signal every five minutes and hoping some get through.
      - Brusco_RF 4y ago
        I doubt it. Thats a great way to murder your battery in the wilderness
- Melatonic 4y ago
  Yea this must be the main feature. And is pretty huge. The emergency thing is icing on the cake. Unfortunately GlobalStar is probably one of the worst satellite constellations out there (that I know of at least) for actual communication (SPOT devices used or still use GlobalStar and are famously crap compared to Garmin inReach on Iridium). Of course it could be improved and they do have the bandwith licenses which is important.
dougmwne 4y ago
Not sure how much else they could do with it. You need to wave your phone around at the sky to send a few bytes of data. It must just be a really low capacity network.
- matt-attack 4y ago
  Apple has apparently used a very very high gain (i.e. highly directional) antenna. That's how they got around having that big external antenna found on competitive hand-helds. I quite like the idea of aiming it by hand using software as the guide.
  - vageli 4y ago
    > Apple has apparently used a very very high gain (i.e. highly directional) antenna. That's how they got around having that big external antenna found on competitive hand-helds. > I quite like the idea of aiming it by hand using software as the guide. In the event of an emergency, fumbling with my phone to find service sounds like a nightmare.
    - reaperducer 4y ago
      But it will probably reduce the number of casual pranksters. Also, difficult-to-use is better than zero connectivity, which is the current situation.
      - kylehotchkiss 4y ago
        The tens of thousands billed for a frivolous rescue request probably will stop the casual pranksters too, getting a helicopter out to wherever you're stuck isn't a free service. If you're really out in remote places often, you probably know this well enough to get rescue insurance.
        ar_turnbull 4y ago
        Actually it depends. In Canada, many rescue services are free (North Shore Vancouver is a well known one here) as well as in the National Parks (the cost is essentially insurance paid for by the park pass fee) and many provincial parks. There is an argument that pay for rescue causes people to hesitate to call and that can lead to worse outcomes and/or more dangerous rescue scenarios.
blantonl 4y ago
I think you underestimate how many iPhones are sold per year, and how many phones Apple forecasts to sell for the 14 model which is satellite enabled. We're talking tens of millions Couple that with phones that will roam into satellite coverage in rural areas... there will be extensive bandwidth requirements from this newly deployed fleet. Especially in the summer...
- wmf 4y ago
  phones that will roam into satellite coverage in rural areas That's not what Apple announced. Satellite service is only for emergencies and is cumbersome to use.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - aabhay 4y ago
    For now! It would make sense for Apple to eventually own/manage a satellite fleet for global communication in the near future. The current carriers must be shitting their pants about this.
    - jlmorton 4y ago
      I'm not exactly sure what you're imagining, but there are fundamental physics problems in the way of just launching a bunch of satellites and enabling global communications. Apple has partnered with Globalstar to use geostationary satellites to send incredibly small amounts of data measured in bytes, not kilobytes. These satellites have only limited bandwidth, and it's very expensive. And with the antenna size and power available in a phone today, it's never going to be more than kilobytes. SpaceX Starlink/TMobile announced a much higher-bandwidth option, but it's incredibly fleeting, lasting just a few seconds. Starlink satellites are in very low Earth orbit, moving at 8km/second. You can't just point an antenna at it and have it work. The antenna needs to track the satellite. And it needs to have a constant line of sight free of obstructions. Starlink currently builds a very cheap phased-array antenna, but it's still ~$1,000 to manufacture, it's a couple cubic feet in volume, and it uses >100 watts. Starlink V2 will bring very large antennas to Starlink satellites which will enable direct 5G connectivity, but that connectivity will last for a few seconds, with perhaps thirty minutes between connections. I'm not saying it's impossible, but no one knows how to build a satellite system currently that will cause any carriers to shit their pants.
gigatexal 4y ago
There’s 1B iPhone users. If 10% upgrade to a 14 pro and over the course of a few years that will ramp
heartbreak 4y ago
Imagine a repeat of Hurricane Harvey, but this time people can request rescues via their iPhone’s satellite capability. That could generate a relatively high volume of traffic.
poulsbohemian 4y ago
You do have to wonder at what point Apple decides they don't need Verizon, T-Mobile et. al. Maybe it's still a long ways off, but if you've gone through the effort of building relationships, hardware, software, etc to weave together a satellite network, why not just keep going down that path?
- xattt 4y ago
  My guess for Apple’s long game is is to turn the Find My network into a distributed network for comms beyond location data. One of the incentives to participate may be free or reduced-cost satellite data.
- martinald 4y ago
  You're vastly underestimating the bandwidth required for cellular service. A starlink sat "cell" can do ~20gbit/sec (though I actually think real world performance will be massively lower). This covers hundreds of kilometres. A single cell tower with 5G/4G is not far off doing that, per sector. And these cell towers can cover as little as 500m or less in dense urban areas. The problem is there are very real physics you come up against with this. We are really tapping out efficiency gains these days so the only option is more, higher frequency spectrum and much denser cell networks.
  - jsjohnst 4y ago
    > A single cell tower with 5G/4G is not far off doing that, per sector. Assuming you mean LTE when you say 4G, the per sector bandwidth is customarily an order of magnitude less than 20gbps. Even in the case of 5G, with sub-6Ghz anyway, you rarely will see above 15gbps. There’s only so many bits per second you can squeeze per megahertz and below 6Ghz the allocations there just isn’t enough available frequency. That’s why cell towers have gotten much closer together.
    - martinald 4y ago
      Where did I mention only sub 6GHz? With mmWave towers are comfortably pushing around 20gig. 4G (LTE) and 5G have similar bits/Hz loadings anyway. And towers are getting closer together. You reduce transmit/receive power and place the towers closer, which results in similar coverage but less interference between cells (with reduced power output).
quitit 4y ago
You are correct - the keynote mentioned that location sharing is also available over satellite.
schappim 4y ago
It isn't just used for the emergency feature, it is also used for the "Find My" network. I suspect more traffic will come from "Find My" than from the emergency feature.
- c7DJTLrn 4y ago
  Source? That seems like a big omission from their keynote earlier today.
  - melvinram 4y ago
    It wasn't omitted. It was covered in the keynote. It's also on their website: 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.
    - tonyhb 4y ago
      Apple's always-on pingback no matter where you go in the globe, even if you disable cell networks. I do believe they care about privacy, though if you look at features like this it's easy to see that they can be worse than Google if they wanted.
      - dymk 4y ago
        Airplane mode. Of course if you don’t trust that, you shouldn’t be buying an Apple product anyways. They could ship an always on microphone streaming to their servers if they wanted to. But we trust that they won’t.
        alasdair_ 4y ago
        Find my works even if the iphone is turned off - does airplane mode stop this?
        4y ago
layer8 4y ago
You have to consider that Apple is selling 200 million iPhones per year.
TedShiller 4y ago
Many unprepared geeks are planning to do risky hikes after reading this
shapefrog 4y ago
Globalstar, Inc. Mkt cap 3.71B. Do I have to be the angry parent with the shotgun or are Apple going to make an honest woman out of Globalstar and just buy them. There is probably enough down the back of the sofa at cuppertino to cover it. While we are at it someone might want to check Apple employee stock portfolios ... that is a strong 80% straight line rally in a bear market the last few months after they announced their profit margins were -72% in June
- neximo64 4y ago
  It wouldn't actually be smart to buy Globalstar, if Apple did they're on the hook for that 3.71B + the cost theyd spend on those messages. This way they pay a relatively minute fee and can have a guarantee they can use Globalstar's existence to compete with others on with price. So they not only don't spend 3.71B they won't get back, the cost of those messages is relatively nothing and easy to compete on with others - for what is a commoditised service. They'd also force Globalstar to spend all that cash theyd get from Apple on their capex, at no risk to Apple. Almost a similar reason to outsource to Foxconn vs buy them and have it in house.
  - shapefrog 4y ago
    Fair, given the 36.8mil of revenue for Globalstar, the annual deal for apple is going to be around that number, actual pocket change. I do disagree however, that global satellite coverage is a commoditised service just yet.
- jsjohnst 4y ago
  > Do I have to be the angry parent with the shotgun or are Apple going to make an honest woman out of Globalstar and just buy them. So the way to make an “honest woman” is to force somebody “to marry her at gunpoint” you say? The previous century called and would like their antiquated statements back. I’m sure you didn’t mean to be sexist, just pointing out the obvious about how bad that phrase is these days.
  - shapefrog 4y ago
anovikov 4y ago
iPhone does not have a directional antenna. It will take enormous amount of power on satellite to communicate to it.
- treesknees 4y ago
  This is one thing that worries me about the feature. If you're stuck in the middle of nowhere with no coverage, presumably no power outlets..., is attempting to transmit a message going to work if you're sitting at 5% battery left?

sschueller 4y ago

It's a great feature worth a lot of money to US law enforcement and co. Being able to track anyone regardless if they have cell signal. /s

wmf 4y ago

Or the capacity of the network is really low.

wongarsu 4y ago
According to Wikipedia they have 52 first-generation satellites from the late 90s, and 24 second-generation satellites from around 2010. And if we go by Iridium's lifetime I wouldn't expect the first generation to still be operational. Compared to Starlink's 2400 currently operational satellites that does seem low. Even compared to Iridium's 75 from the late 2010s, Globalstar's 24 seems small.
- oneplane 4y ago
  It's the kind of 'low bandwidth' you'd see with analog telephone modems. A single JSON request-response over TLS would take many seconds.
  - walrus01 4y ago
    Current generation globalstar is about the same speed as first gen iridium, which is around the speed of a 2400 bps dialup modem from the late 1980s. With the current satellites, yes, if they think they have enough capital (at least many hundreds of millions) to launch a new clean sheet of paper design LEO network using the existing globalstar L/S-band spectrum licenses, they could implement something better. The value of globalstar is not in the existing satellites and earth stations, which are pretty much trash at this point for any modern use except very low data rate M2M data in certain geographically restricted areas. The value is in the existing LEO network operational licenses.
    - oneplane 4y ago
      Yep, similar value is found on other technically inept solutions that are mostly kept around to keep the license to operate active (since some of those require active use to retain them).
  - kylehotchkiss 4y ago
    The mentioned in the announcement developing a very efficient data codec for text compression, I'd presume something Binary and not over TLS, just raw data packets probably with some encryption
    - oneplane 4y ago
      I'm sure the Apple use case is different from a web api, but it was more for illustrative purposes. I imagine most developers know how to wrap data in JSON and how to do a HTTP call over TLS. When using that as a point of reference, having such a transmission take a long time might show how little bandwidth some M2M networks have (or need). I wouldn't be surprised if the current Globalstar network is so limited it wouldn't even do voice.
      - kylehotchkiss 4y ago
        They support voice (https://www.globalstar.com/en-us/products/voice-and-data https://www.globalstar.com/en-us/products/voice-and-data), it's my understanding that it's analog and not digital though, like a really narrowband landline phone call
        oneplane 4y ago
        That makes sense. Satphones are probably using that same super low symbol rate used by M2M.
    - noway421 4y ago
      Given that they're transmitting an app form over to Apple's server, they could encode checkboxes with bitmaps and text fields with dictionary LZMA. There probably will be only a few bytes of the actual data per emergency submission + protocol authentication and error correction overhead.
- mirekrusin 4y ago
  They say 85% so it must be 17 out of 20, no?
- thrdbndndn 4y ago
  >I wouldn't expect the first generation to still be operational From Wikipedia: >In 2007, Globalstar launched eight additional first-generation spare satellites into space to help compensate for the premature failure of their in-orbit satellites. Between 2010 and 2013, Globalstar launched 24 second-generation satellites in an effort to restore their system to full service. So you're totally right.
- Gh0stRAT 4y ago
  Slightly apples-to-oranges comparison on the satellite count. Unlike Globalstar, the Iridium network uses polar orbits which means they're covering a larger area and thus need more satellites to achieve comparable service in the limited latitudes that Globalstar covers. (that being said, if you're going to be in mountainous terrain, higher latitudes, far from land, etc then Iridium will have better coverage)

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

closetohome 4y ago

Apparently it works with Find My as well. I wouldn't be surprised if they started rolling out premium features that take more bandwidth once everybody's free two years expires.

bombcar 4y ago
This is it right here! The "emergency" part is a feel-good on top of the real service, which is location updates every X time even when off in no cell service land.
- manderley 4y ago
  "every X time" meaning as often as you're willing to point your phone at a satellite and wait a few minutes for your location to transmit?
  - bombcar 4y ago
    That I don’t know - I could see it trying to send a signal every five minutes and hoping some get through.
    - Brusco_RF 4y ago
      I doubt it. Thats a great way to murder your battery in the wilderness
Melatonic 4y ago
Yea this must be the main feature. And is pretty huge. The emergency thing is icing on the cake. Unfortunately GlobalStar is probably one of the worst satellite constellations out there (that I know of at least) for actual communication (SPOT devices used or still use GlobalStar and are famously crap compared to Garmin inReach on Iridium). Of course it could be improved and they do have the bandwith licenses which is important.

dougmwne 4y ago

Not sure how much else they could do with it. You need to wave your phone around at the sky to send a few bytes of data. It must just be a really low capacity network.

matt-attack 4y ago
Apple has apparently used a very very high gain (i.e. highly directional) antenna. That's how they got around having that big external antenna found on competitive hand-helds. I quite like the idea of aiming it by hand using software as the guide.
- vageli 4y ago
  > Apple has apparently used a very very high gain (i.e. highly directional) antenna. That's how they got around having that big external antenna found on competitive hand-helds. > I quite like the idea of aiming it by hand using software as the guide. In the event of an emergency, fumbling with my phone to find service sounds like a nightmare.
  - reaperducer 4y ago
    But it will probably reduce the number of casual pranksters. Also, difficult-to-use is better than zero connectivity, which is the current situation.
    - kylehotchkiss 4y ago
      The tens of thousands billed for a frivolous rescue request probably will stop the casual pranksters too, getting a helicopter out to wherever you're stuck isn't a free service. If you're really out in remote places often, you probably know this well enough to get rescue insurance.
      - ar_turnbull 4y ago
        Actually it depends. In Canada, many rescue services are free (North Shore Vancouver is a well known one here) as well as in the National Parks (the cost is essentially insurance paid for by the park pass fee) and many provincial parks. There is an argument that pay for rescue causes people to hesitate to call and that can lead to worse outcomes and/or more dangerous rescue scenarios.

blantonl 4y ago

I think you underestimate how many iPhones are sold per year, and how many phones Apple forecasts to sell for the 14 model which is satellite enabled. We're talking tens of millions Couple that with phones that will roam into satellite coverage in rural areas... there will be extensive bandwidth requirements from this newly deployed fleet. Especially in the summer...

wmf 4y ago
phones that will roam into satellite coverage in rural areas That's not what Apple announced. Satellite service is only for emergencies and is cumbersome to use.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- aabhay 4y ago
  For now! It would make sense for Apple to eventually own/manage a satellite fleet for global communication in the near future. The current carriers must be shitting their pants about this.
  - jlmorton 4y ago
    I'm not exactly sure what you're imagining, but there are fundamental physics problems in the way of just launching a bunch of satellites and enabling global communications. Apple has partnered with Globalstar to use geostationary satellites to send incredibly small amounts of data measured in bytes, not kilobytes. These satellites have only limited bandwidth, and it's very expensive. And with the antenna size and power available in a phone today, it's never going to be more than kilobytes. SpaceX Starlink/TMobile announced a much higher-bandwidth option, but it's incredibly fleeting, lasting just a few seconds. Starlink satellites are in very low Earth orbit, moving at 8km/second. You can't just point an antenna at it and have it work. The antenna needs to track the satellite. And it needs to have a constant line of sight free of obstructions. Starlink currently builds a very cheap phased-array antenna, but it's still ~$1,000 to manufacture, it's a couple cubic feet in volume, and it uses >100 watts. Starlink V2 will bring very large antennas to Starlink satellites which will enable direct 5G connectivity, but that connectivity will last for a few seconds, with perhaps thirty minutes between connections. I'm not saying it's impossible, but no one knows how to build a satellite system currently that will cause any carriers to shit their pants.

gigatexal 4y ago

There’s 1B iPhone users. If 10% upgrade to a 14 pro and over the course of a few years that will ramp

heartbreak 4y ago

Imagine a repeat of Hurricane Harvey, but this time people can request rescues via their iPhone’s satellite capability. That could generate a relatively high volume of traffic.

poulsbohemian 4y ago

You do have to wonder at what point Apple decides they don't need Verizon, T-Mobile et. al. Maybe it's still a long ways off, but if you've gone through the effort of building relationships, hardware, software, etc to weave together a satellite network, why not just keep going down that path?

xattt 4y ago
My guess for Apple’s long game is is to turn the Find My network into a distributed network for comms beyond location data. One of the incentives to participate may be free or reduced-cost satellite data.
martinald 4y ago
You're vastly underestimating the bandwidth required for cellular service. A starlink sat "cell" can do ~20gbit/sec (though I actually think real world performance will be massively lower). This covers hundreds of kilometres. A single cell tower with 5G/4G is not far off doing that, per sector. And these cell towers can cover as little as 500m or less in dense urban areas. The problem is there are very real physics you come up against with this. We are really tapping out efficiency gains these days so the only option is more, higher frequency spectrum and much denser cell networks.
- jsjohnst 4y ago
  > A single cell tower with 5G/4G is not far off doing that, per sector. Assuming you mean LTE when you say 4G, the per sector bandwidth is customarily an order of magnitude less than 20gbps. Even in the case of 5G, with sub-6Ghz anyway, you rarely will see above 15gbps. There’s only so many bits per second you can squeeze per megahertz and below 6Ghz the allocations there just isn’t enough available frequency. That’s why cell towers have gotten much closer together.
  - martinald 4y ago
    Where did I mention only sub 6GHz? With mmWave towers are comfortably pushing around 20gig. 4G (LTE) and 5G have similar bits/Hz loadings anyway. And towers are getting closer together. You reduce transmit/receive power and place the towers closer, which results in similar coverage but less interference between cells (with reduced power output).

quitit 4y ago

You are correct - the keynote mentioned that location sharing is also available over satellite.

schappim 4y ago

It isn't just used for the emergency feature, it is also used for the "Find My" network. I suspect more traffic will come from "Find My" than from the emergency feature.

c7DJTLrn 4y ago
Source? That seems like a big omission from their keynote earlier today.
- melvinram 4y ago
  It wasn't omitted. It was covered in the keynote. It's also on their website: 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.
  - tonyhb 4y ago
    Apple's always-on pingback no matter where you go in the globe, even if you disable cell networks. I do believe they care about privacy, though if you look at features like this it's easy to see that they can be worse than Google if they wanted.
    - dymk 4y ago
      Airplane mode. Of course if you don’t trust that, you shouldn’t be buying an Apple product anyways. They could ship an always on microphone streaming to their servers if they wanted to. But we trust that they won’t.
      - alasdair_ 4y ago
        Find my works even if the iphone is turned off - does airplane mode stop this?
        4y ago

layer8 4y ago

You have to consider that Apple is selling 200 million iPhones per year.

TedShiller 4y ago

Many unprepared geeks are planning to do risky hikes after reading this

shapefrog 4y ago

Globalstar, Inc. Mkt cap 3.71B. Do I have to be the angry parent with the shotgun or are Apple going to make an honest woman out of Globalstar and just buy them. There is probably enough down the back of the sofa at cuppertino to cover it. While we are at it someone might want to check Apple employee stock portfolios ... that is a strong 80% straight line rally in a bear market the last few months after they announced their profit margins were -72% in June

neximo64 4y ago
It wouldn't actually be smart to buy Globalstar, if Apple did they're on the hook for that 3.71B + the cost theyd spend on those messages. This way they pay a relatively minute fee and can have a guarantee they can use Globalstar's existence to compete with others on with price. So they not only don't spend 3.71B they won't get back, the cost of those messages is relatively nothing and easy to compete on with others - for what is a commoditised service. They'd also force Globalstar to spend all that cash theyd get from Apple on their capex, at no risk to Apple. Almost a similar reason to outsource to Foxconn vs buy them and have it in house.
- shapefrog 4y ago
  Fair, given the 36.8mil of revenue for Globalstar, the annual deal for apple is going to be around that number, actual pocket change. I do disagree however, that global satellite coverage is a commoditised service just yet.
jsjohnst 4y ago
> Do I have to be the angry parent with the shotgun or are Apple going to make an honest woman out of Globalstar and just buy them. So the way to make an “honest woman” is to force somebody “to marry her at gunpoint” you say? The previous century called and would like their antiquated statements back. I’m sure you didn’t mean to be sexist, just pointing out the obvious about how bad that phrase is these days.
- shapefrog 4y ago

anovikov 4y ago

iPhone does not have a directional antenna. It will take enormous amount of power on satellite to communicate to it.

treesknees 4y ago
This is one thing that worries me about the feature. If you're stuck in the middle of nowhere with no coverage, presumably no power outlets..., is attempting to transmit a message going to work if you're sitting at 5% battery left?