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Apple Technology

Apple Will Spend $450 Million With Globalstar and Others To Enable Emergency Satellite Texting (cnbc.com) 70

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
Apple said Thursday it will spend $450 million with U.S. companies to enable its new emergency satellite texting feature. From a report: The majority of that money will go to Globalstar, Apple said, a Louisiana-based company that operates the satellites that make the feature possible. Apple isn't taking an equity stake in the company but it is committing to spend money for equipment and the service's operations. The funds will pay for satellites, as well as equipping ground stations with a new kind of antenna designed by Apple.

In September, Apple announced Emergency SOS with Satellite as a banner feature on new iPhone 14 models. If users are out of range of a cellular tower, such as in a remote area while camping, they can still connect to emergency services by pointing their phone into the sky and connecting to one of 24 Globalstar satellites in low Earth orbit. It will launch later this month through an iPhone software update. Thursday's announcement underscores the significant costs of operating the service. The feature is free for two years but Apple has left open the possibility of charging for it after that. The service is not entirely automated and it requires human-staffed call centers -- over 300 Globalstar employees will work on the service, Apple said.
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Apple Will Spend $450 Million With Globalstar and Others To Enable Emergency Satellite Texting More

Apple Will Spend $450 Million With Globalstar and Others To Enable Emergency Satellite Texting

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  • I have never been an Apple fan, but this is actually a cool innovation. Of course, with such a high price tag for an emergency-only service, and one which is free for two years, I have to wonder if there are other implications. Are there privacy or tracking considerations here? The rule of thumb is, where anything on the Internet is free then you are the product. Apple is a founding member of that concept, so what else is there that they aren't saying?

    • You can look at it a few ways. One is that by investing in the technology, it gets less expensive over time. I don't know anything about the particular company, but with that much money coming in it will make SV VCs consider funding similar companies at the very least.

      A more sinister view is that someone was told ahead of time to invest in this company (I'm assuming they're publicly traded in this case) and they're probably going to make some money off of the announcement.

      You can also view it as a mar
      • The long play is Apple can migrate all net coms to satellite and is no longer beholden to telcos. They can dip their toes in the fashion they are and but eventually they can own or operate their own satellite network. Nobody is perfect, but personally I would use an Apple network because they have a history of monetizing their products as opposed my data.

    • By the time they start charging money for it, it will already be obsoleted by starlink's LTE service. T-Mobile will be the first to offer it with their service, other mobile providers will be following suit.

    • Apple does want to create a worldwide private network. Not only do FindMy can work anywhere, but so it devices can work anywhere without third party interference

      The privacy concerns are yet to get seen. They will be significant.

      The money is not significant. The World Cup will cost north of 20 billion.

      • "third party interference" == a third party interfering with their profits

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by fermion ( 181285 )
          I love all the communists around here that hate profits. We should have one government mandated phone with one network that is funded by tax dollars.

          • Communists don't hate profits, they just hate when they aren't the recipient. Every communist "government" that ever existed has been a kleptocracy. They just go around taking everybody's shit, killing anybody who tries to stop them, and then demand that you work for the state for free. Then they tell you that it's all for the best.

            • Comment removed based on user account deletion

              • Wage is the same as revenue; that is, it's the proceeds of the sale of your own time/labor. After the government takes its cut, and also after you take into account your expenses for things like transportation that are needed to earn that wage, what you're left with is profit.

                • Comment removed based on user account deletion

                  • Anything that's considered a basic necessity be operated as nonprofit coop.

                    We already tried that with food. Collectivizing agriculture resulted in the starvation of 40 million people.

                    Holodomor [wikipedia.org]

                    Great Leap Forward [wikipedia.org]

                    • Except those examples ignore the fact that in both of those cases, the countries were producing more than they needed, but the leaders were exporting it for money.

                    • Re: (Score:2)

                      by dryeo ( 100693 )

                      Most Co-ops are voluntary and many are ran by and for farmers as farmers, well small farmers, are naturally socialist, hate big government and like co-operating..

                    • Re: (Score:2)

                      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

                      The reality is that most developed nations subsidise and regulate food to the point where it is basically socialized.

                      For example, the EU pays farmers to keep land usable for crops without growing them, and to over-produce crops, for the purpose of food security. If, say, Ukraine was invaded and suddenly a large amount of crop foods became unavailable, the EU would have more than enough available farm land and agriculture industry to feed itself and keep price rises down a bit too.

                    • Yes and no. Holodomore was exporting it all to Russia, and not for profit, but just to keep their own populace happy while they starved off non-Russians, especially Ukrainians in particular.

                      Great leap forward there was none of that. Plain and simple, it was the end result of a planned economy. And want to guess how it ended? Somebody, somewhere, broke the laws and established a thriving black market. They -- get this -- ended the co-ops and started...profiting...and whaddya know? People stopped starving.

                      htt [reason.com]

                    • I know many farmers. Nay -- I'm related to many farmers -- and I've yet to meet a single one that in any way wants socialism. Every single one of them wants to make money. The only ones I've heard of that aren't barely even make enough food to feed themselves and maybe a few people around them. Those "farmers markets" you buy from source their produce basically the same way Walmart does, in fact many of them even use the same suppliers and aren't even farmers, but they like to sell at farmer's markets becau

                    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

          • One Bell System.
            It works.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by dryeo ( 100693 )

            Some of us like the free market, which is the opposite of unbridled capitalism and results in competition driving profits down. Insane profits are usually a sign of a broken free market. Telecom's in Canada for example, most profitable in the world, when one raises its prices, the other 2 follow along and can charge 50 cents a MB for internet in 2022. Every competitor gets bought out as well.
            Now the free market might seem like communism, what with needing government to keep it free and being the opposite of

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by bn-7bc ( 909819 )
              And here i thought Norway was expensive, but when it comes to mobile data you have us beat by a country mile, I just checked my mvno ( ok it's amongst the cheapest in norway) and for 1 GB if extra data ( if you exceed the usage in your plan and don't want to be ridiculously throttled ) is CAD 10.46 (converted from NOK at 2022-11-11T07:20Z) or about ap1/5 of the price in Canada based on your /MB price, and if you get a larger databoost the Price/GB goes down. You are rigt canada is way over orized when jt co

    • I have never been an Apple fan, but this is actually a cool innovation. Of course, with such a high price tag for an emergency-only service, and one which is free for two years, I have to wonder if there are other implications. Are there privacy or tracking considerations here? The rule of thumb is, where anything on the Internet is free then you are the product. Apple is a founding member of that concept, so what else is there that they aren't saying?

      Since when is Apple "a founding member" of making the User the Produuct?

      I think you are conflating them with Others.

        • How about being bribed by Google? [theatlantic.com]

          1. How is that a bribe?

          2. How more offtopic can you get?

          3. Bullshit.

          • Look in a dictionary what "bribe" means.

            • Look in a dictionary what "bribe" means.

              Not a bribe; simply a Fee for being the Factory Default Search Engine. Big Fucking Deal. In what way did Apple modify their behavior in an illegal or anticompetitive manner?

              BTW, you can easily change the Default Engine on any Apple Device that supports Web Browsing. For instance, I set it to DDG on my iPhone and MacBook Pro.

              If it was actually a Bribe, Google would be the only Search Engine; not just the Default.

              • Comment removed based on user account deletion

                • When stripping the social bias to its mechanics of influence and output, a bribe and a fee are the same damn thing.

                  Paying some form of sacrafice to another entity in order to strongly influence them to do something they otherwise wouldn't.

                  Legality is just a social game. And like all social games it is more purposeful distortion then measured report. It's just yet another source of influence that colors perception in social glamour supported by targeted suffering.

                  What a bunch of Doublespeak!

      • Itâ(TM)s a cell phone. The feature is so help can locate you in an emergency. But you want this to work without âoetrackingâ?
        Interesting implementation you have envisioned.

        • Itâ(TM)s a cell phone. The feature is so help can locate you in an emergency. But you want this to work without âoetrackingâ?
          Interesting implementation you have envisioned.

          It's not "Tracking" if the User has to manually initiate the "Report My Location"/SOS Process.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          "Tracking" generally means recording your movements over time, not a one time location fix for a single message that is only sent on request of the user.

          Most phones add location information to photos, if the user has that option turned on. I wouldn't consider that tracking. Other stuff is more borderline, like how Apple enables "Significant Locations", which is basically a list of your movements, by default and without clear messaging when you agree to their terms during device set-up.

          Obviously covertly col

    • The rule of thumb is, where anything on the Internet is free then you are the product.

      Exelcia complained, ... about one of the most expensive smartphones on the market, ... without any sense of irony.

  • yea, that's what I want in a life or death situation

    • Remember it's not that the satellite doesn't work, it's that you're dying wrong.

    • No, no, you died because you were holding the handset wrong. The antenna couldn't make the connection because your thumb was in the way. Also, you had the phone in an non-Apple licensed case which is against Apple's EULA & TOS so your family isn't eligible for any compensation but we'll bully them into signing an NDA & give them a little bit of money to shut them up because we don't like any negative publicity.

    • yea, that's what I want in a life or death situation

      As opposed to just being Shit Outta Luck?

      Yeah, I'll take a little inconvenience to say, freezing to death.

      There are no exposed antennae. It is a Satellite in fucking Outer Space!!! The fact it takes a little help from the User to establish the best signal-path should be completely unsurprising.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Osgeld ( 1900440 )

        your taking a quip a bit too seriously

      • The starlink solution shouldn't need any of that.

        • The starlink solution shouldn't need any of that.

          Of course; Vaporware can do anything!

          https://www.space.com/spacex-s... [space.com]

          Considering St. Elon is already renegging on his bandwidth claims for his existing Crappy Starlink Service (that requires Dishy McDishface!); his optimistic claims of a laughable 2-4 Megabits per "cell" (not per connection!) must be taken with a boulder-sized grain of salt.

          And who knows how much? Residential Starlink with Roaming (which this would be akin-to) is $130 per month.

          Meanwhile, Apple's Satellite SOS Service, with human-staffed a

  • Apple should have given the $450 million to SpaceX, because their phone to satellite solution is better and works with existing phones. Reference: https://www.t-mobile.com/news/... [t-mobile.com]

    With the $450 million, SpaceX could have accelerated Starship development.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • How do you point a rectangular box? There's no visible antenna.... what the fuck does that even mean?

    And seriously, I doubt that an extra couple of feet or so you might get by holding it over your head is going to make even the smallest perceptable difference, considering the distances that the signal has to travel.

    • How do you point a rectangular box? There's no visible antenna.... what the fuck does that even mean?

      It takes courage

    • There couldn't possibly be any way to determine the orientation of the rectangle, either.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mark-t ( 151149 )
        That's kind of what I was saying... there isn't one. Do you point the top of the phone to the sky? The back side? What does it even mean?

        • Is is a mystery. If only it could show some sort of moving picture to assist in showing what side is up on your phone, with a gyro, compass, and GPS to determine orientation. I doubt they thought of that down in Cupertino.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by mark-t ( 151149 )

            Obviously the phone can know how it is oriented, my point is that the phrase "point the phone into the sky" for something like this is an absolutely stupid one, because the phone does not have an orientation in the same sense that an arrow does. Any notion of orientation is measured by software, and is not particular to the hardware.

            And I can understand that there may be a need to be outside, but "pointing it upwards" isn't going to make even the slightest perceptable difference for a signal that will h

            • You seem to be assuming the satellite antenna in the phone is isotropic, with no directional gain. What makes you so sure that's the case?

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by mark-t ( 151149 )
                My primary objection to the terminology comes from the fact that "pointing the phone into the sky" is going to have a different intuitive meaning to different people. To some it might mean having the glass facing upwards. To some it may mean holding it vertically with the top side of the phone facing up, and to others it might mean holding it so that the camera is facing up. Finally, any notion of "pointing the phone to the sky" is as likely as not as to imply to people that they need to hold the phone o

    • Way to mis-read the summary AND expose your bias at the same time.

      You can't possibly see any scenario when you use the service that it depicts the correct orientation on the screen?

      It say's "pointing", not "holding aloft". I can point (orient) my phone towards the sky and still hold it around my belly-button.

      And no, I don't own an iPhone, nor do I plan to, but bias must be called out.

  • I have a consumer Globalstar device. It works, but can take a long time to acquire a satellite from urban NorCal. The user interface is what one might have seen in 1985, before Apple MacIntosh.

    So, although I will never probably want to pay for an apple phone, this is excellent. My current device cost $250 so I could put that toward an Apple phone I guess.

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