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/
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48

u/_streetsbehind Sep 07 '22

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.

-6

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.

3

u/Vortex112 Sep 07 '22

Why?

11

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

0

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.

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

  2. 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.