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As Apple is making emergency satellite communication a consumer thing, I expect other companies will follow. So at least in unusual situations like this no-cel

by z9znz 4y ago

As Apple is making emergency satellite communication a consumer thing, I expect other companies will follow. So at least in unusual situations like this no-cell-service one, spending a cold night in the woods is hopefully less of a risk.

makeitdouble 4y ago
Apple’s satellite connection is still very experimental (you need to initiate it, you have to find the range and do the ritual, and it’s on one of the worst connected provider with limited coverage), and feels more like a checkbox for marketing than an actual mass ready feature. I’d put it in the same bin as lidar: it’s cool they got something working at all in such a constrained package. Hopefully it will become better/more generally useful within a decade. (nowadays satellite phones or portable modems are actually pretty small, capable, and not that expensive. Consumer level access is already a thing in that regard)
- z9znz 4y ago
  > Hopefully it will become better/more generally useful within a decade This is kind of what Apple has always done: bring a new (cool) thing to the consumer, even if it isn't as good as it sounds. But so far they seem to catch up and make it good after a couple of iterations. And in this case it puts that checkbox in the consumer's mind, so other manufacturers will probably put some effort into matching or exceeding it. If I were planning on being in places with no coverage and some risk, I would buy one of the relatively inexpensive Garmin satellite comm/safety devices. But most normal, non-wilderness-adventure people are not going to do that. Maybe this Apple feature will save a few people.
  - makeitdouble 4y ago
    The funny thing is, that approach used to be from Samsung or Google: bring in a shiny looking, but immature and still kinda useless feature and try to make it decent in the next iterations. Like always on display, the foldables, pen support on the Note series, or project Soli on the Pixel 4 etc. Apple used to wait for a good implementation to jump on the bandwagon. Now we have all the makers throwing uncooked spaghetti at the wall, and so many recent Apple headline feature are kinda half-assed (including the other Watch “leaps” like ecg or blood oxygen levels which are just not there yet and might never be)

by z9znz 4y ago

makeitdouble 4y ago

Apple’s satellite connection is still very experimental (you need to initiate it, you have to find the range and do the ritual, and it’s on one of the worst connected provider with limited coverage), and feels more like a checkbox for marketing than an actual mass ready feature. I’d put it in the same bin as lidar: it’s cool they got something working at all in such a constrained package. Hopefully it will become better/more generally useful within a decade. (nowadays satellite phones or portable modems are actually pretty small, capable, and not that expensive. Consumer level access is already a thing in that regard)

z9znz 4y ago
> Hopefully it will become better/more generally useful within a decade This is kind of what Apple has always done: bring a new (cool) thing to the consumer, even if it isn't as good as it sounds. But so far they seem to catch up and make it good after a couple of iterations. And in this case it puts that checkbox in the consumer's mind, so other manufacturers will probably put some effort into matching or exceeding it. If I were planning on being in places with no coverage and some risk, I would buy one of the relatively inexpensive Garmin satellite comm/safety devices. But most normal, non-wilderness-adventure people are not going to do that. Maybe this Apple feature will save a few people.
- makeitdouble 4y ago
  The funny thing is, that approach used to be from Samsung or Google: bring in a shiny looking, but immature and still kinda useless feature and try to make it decent in the next iterations. Like always on display, the foldables, pen support on the Note series, or project Soli on the Pixel 4 etc. Apple used to wait for a good implementation to jump on the bandwagon. Now we have all the makers throwing uncooked spaghetti at the wall, and so many recent Apple headline feature are kinda half-assed (including the other Watch “leaps” like ecg or blood oxygen levels which are just not there yet and might never be)