r/apple • u/exjr_ Island Boy • Sep 07 '22

Apple Unveils Apple Watch Ultra With Large-Screen Design for Athletes and Explorers Apple Watch

https://www.macrumors.com/2022/09/07/apple-unveils-apple-watch-pro-athletes/

2.8k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

Lots of talk about ultra runners and thru hikers and fast packers. Real talk: we’re more excited about emergency satellite messaging on iPhone 14 than the ultra watch.

-5

u/TehRoot Sep 07 '22

You should absolutely NOT be replacing a dedicated satellite emergency device with your iPhone.

This is a horrible idea and absolutely can and will cost someone their life at some point.

20

u/_streetsbehind Sep 07 '22

The phone brings this tech to the masses. Dedicated devices are expensive, require a sub, and are an extra device to carry. For those reasons sadly many people go backcountry without anything. This is way better than nothing. Think of it like Apple Watch EKG compared to professional device.

2

u/TehRoot Sep 07 '22

For those reasons sadly many people go backcountry without anything. This is way better than nothing. Think of it like Apple Watch EKG compared to professional device.

Or conversely, I've seen people saying they're going to ditch their satellite devices for this or saying that they don't need to carry them anymore.

3

u/_streetsbehind Sep 07 '22

Yeah it will be interesting to see how the phone performs in real world to inreach et al. Will it be 50% as good? 90, 95%? Will have to wait and see.

7

u/stultus_respectant Sep 07 '22

Even if it's only 5% as good/reliable (it's obviously better than that), this is the difference between 50k people with access to this technology and 100 million people. The math is favorable on this having a serious positive impact.

3

u/_streetsbehind Sep 07 '22

Yep. Gonna save lots of butts who don’t even know the other devices exist.

8

u/stultus_respectant Sep 07 '22

I mean you're right but also thinking a little narrowly. You should not replace a dedicated emergency device with an iPhone, but literal millions more people now having access to a potentially life saving technology is going to unquestionably save lives in aggregate.

1

u/TehRoot Sep 07 '22

There are people in this thread and in other subreddits and elsewhere that I have read thinking about replacing their PLBs or dedicated satcom with this now.

There are also people that might just think they're okay with the iPhones limited usecases and think they shouldn't buy a dedicated device.

Those are the people that are concerning.

3

u/stultus_respectant Sep 08 '22

Ok, but assuming that's true, and a handful of people actually do do that, it's still going to be several orders of magnitude fewer people downgrading than upgrading their access to this technology. That's what I'm referring to. This is going to save far more lives than it could possibly risk.

Nothing wrong with expressing concern, but let's be sure to put this in perspective.

3

u/Vortex112 Sep 07 '22

Why?

9

u/TehRoot Sep 07 '22

An iPhone is not an appropriate piece of safety equipment, especially if you're going into situations where you getting rescued or dying is dependent on a satellite communication device.

The caveats to operate it at are not good (manual pointing, lol... can't think of anyway that wouldn't work if you were severely injured, extremely poor performance in any foliage or canyons), the satellite constellation it uses is sub-optimal (globestar...), and it's on a device that has poor battery life and poor survivability for a piece of safety equipment (I wouldn't trust my iPhone to make it if I had a nasty fall that I broke my leg on).

3

u/cristiano-potato Sep 08 '22

What would you recommend if budget isn’t an issue and someone simply wants the best emergency device you can buy?

1

u/mynameisyles657 Sep 08 '22

Probably Garmin Inreach, the actual device isn’t the expensive part though. They get you with the subscription costs.

I spent two weeks driving off-road through Utah in June and ended up buying a Bivy Stick just in case my Jeep rolled and I was out of cell service.

They had the most flexible subscription options, and give you the ability to subscribe for only a month at a time where Garmin requires either a year subscription or two years, I’m a bit hazy on those details

-3

u/sethismename Sep 07 '22

You can’t even get the new phone yet. Might be better than u think

3

u/TehRoot Sep 07 '22

Just based on what they've said it's basically good for two things.

Bringing emergency satcom to people who don't already have a satcom device and/or a PLB.

Being a redundant option for emergency satcom.

1

u/sethismename Sep 07 '22

Ya I think for the average person it’s great for emergencies but for someone with an actual satphone, it doesn’t compete till you can text and call specific people

2

u/TehRoot Sep 07 '22

The only thing I can see doing that are the Starlink proposals with carriers and leveraging 5G/LEO constellations.

The problem is that there's a lot of technical barriers and cost to doing those proposals at the cellular device level.

Enough barriers that I think it'll be hard to do over the current setup where you can buy a dedicated inmarsat device for $650 and pay a $7-50 monthly subscription.

3

u/OKCNOTOKC Sep 07 '22 edited Jul 01 '23

In light of Reddit's decision to limit my ability to create and view content as of July 1, 2023, I am electing to limit Reddit's ability to retain the content I have created.

My apologies to anyone who might have been looking for something useful I had posted in the past. Perhaps you can find your answer at a site that holds its creators in higher regard.

1

u/LR_111 Sep 08 '22

How do you know how a inReach mini will compare to the new iPhone for SOS and location tracking?

1

u/pm_me_actsofkindness Sep 08 '22

You got it exactly wrong though. Adding satellite emergency functionality to an iPhone isn’t for the people who already have a dedicated satellite emergency device. Those people will keep the superior thing they’ve already paid for and keep using it.

It’s for all of the people who have not and would not buy themselves a dedicated device, and it absolutely will save people’s lives because even if the iPhone tech doesn’t work as well or as reliably as a dedicated device, it’ll be better than nothing, which is what the people dying currently have—nothing.