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iPhone has shown that people don't want dedicated devices. iPhone has replaced: watch, compass, digital camera, calculator, ebook reader, portable DVD player, f

by acchow 4y ago

iPhone has shown that people don't want dedicated devices. iPhone has replaced: watch, compass, digital camera, calculator, ebook reader, portable DVD player, flashlight, Garmin GPS, etc. etc. etc.

goleary 4y ago
debatable...lots of people with iphones still use watches and ereaders. and for a life saving device like this i know a subset of people will not want it a part of their phone. ...but this will definitely take a LOT of business from garmin because i believe that subset to be pretty small.
- frio 4y ago
  As someone who hikes (well, it's NZ, so, tramps) a fair bit, we'll continue taking our PLB with us (we opted for a 406MHz PLB rather than the Garmin solutions because we didn't want to find out in a life-threatening situation that our credit cards had expired a month ago and we couldn't call for help!). You're right, a dedicated device is pretty mandatory for true life threatening situations, and we always have a bevy of safety equipment on harder tramps. With that said, the iPhone (Pro?) is becoming somewhat of a swiss army knife for casual tramping: offline maps with GPS and a compass, an excellent set of cameras, an ereader, excellent battery life to back all that up _and_ it can now communicate with the rest of the world in non-life threatening -- but marginal -- situations. As an example, we leave intentions with people whenever we leave ("here is our route, if we're not back by midday on the third, contact SAR"); being able to message people and say "hey, I've rolled my ankle, we're safe but will be late because we're limping out, don't worry" is a pretty excellent feature. We're probably a niche market, but several friends in that community are pretty excited about this feature. For 2-3 day trips, this makes the outdoors much more accessible.
guyzero 4y ago
Sure. Garmin is still $5B in sales annually. Which is peanuts next to the iPhone, so you wonder why they even bother going after it. AirPods are a bigger business than that.
- bjtitus 4y ago
  It’s almost like they’re thinking about more than just the immediate money and consider these part of their messaging around health & safety. Kind of like how Collision Detection could have been an excellent Apple Watch upsell feature but was brought to all iPhones anyway. They recognize the power of things like fall and afib detection for pushing into the ever growing consumer Health market.
cozzyd 4y ago
The biggest issue is probably battery life though... an InReach lasts 4 days in its default mode and 30 days in a lower-power mode. An iPhone lasts... less than that.
- bjtitus 4y ago
  Most people would much rather spend $20-$50 on decent external batteries and keep their all-in-one device than spend hundreds of dollars + monthly fees for dedicated satellite communicators or rescue beacons.

by acchow 4y ago

iPhone has shown that people don't want dedicated devices. iPhone has replaced: watch, compass, digital camera, calculator, ebook reader, portable DVD player, flashlight, Garmin GPS, etc. etc. etc.

goleary 4y ago

debatable...lots of people with iphones still use watches and ereaders. and for a life saving device like this i know a subset of people will not want it a part of their phone. ...but this will definitely take a LOT of business from garmin because i believe that subset to be pretty small.

frio 4y ago
As someone who hikes (well, it's NZ, so, tramps) a fair bit, we'll continue taking our PLB with us (we opted for a 406MHz PLB rather than the Garmin solutions because we didn't want to find out in a life-threatening situation that our credit cards had expired a month ago and we couldn't call for help!). You're right, a dedicated device is pretty mandatory for true life threatening situations, and we always have a bevy of safety equipment on harder tramps. With that said, the iPhone (Pro?) is becoming somewhat of a swiss army knife for casual tramping: offline maps with GPS and a compass, an excellent set of cameras, an ereader, excellent battery life to back all that up _and_ it can now communicate with the rest of the world in non-life threatening -- but marginal -- situations. As an example, we leave intentions with people whenever we leave ("here is our route, if we're not back by midday on the third, contact SAR"); being able to message people and say "hey, I've rolled my ankle, we're safe but will be late because we're limping out, don't worry" is a pretty excellent feature. We're probably a niche market, but several friends in that community are pretty excited about this feature. For 2-3 day trips, this makes the outdoors much more accessible.

guyzero 4y ago

Sure. Garmin is still $5B in sales annually. Which is peanuts next to the iPhone, so you wonder why they even bother going after it. AirPods are a bigger business than that.

bjtitus 4y ago
It’s almost like they’re thinking about more than just the immediate money and consider these part of their messaging around health & safety. Kind of like how Collision Detection could have been an excellent Apple Watch upsell feature but was brought to all iPhones anyway. They recognize the power of things like fall and afib detection for pushing into the ever growing consumer Health market.

cozzyd 4y ago

The biggest issue is probably battery life though... an InReach lasts 4 days in its default mode and 30 days in a lower-power mode. An iPhone lasts... less than that.

bjtitus 4y ago
Most people would much rather spend $20-$50 on decent external batteries and keep their all-in-one device than spend hundreds of dollars + monthly fees for dedicated satellite communicators or rescue beacons.