The iPhone 14’s best emergency feature will finally launch this month
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Apple’s Emergency SOS via Satellite feature is finally coming to the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Pro later this month (November 2022) — if you live in the US or Canada, that is.
Every iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Pro model (including the larger iPhone 14 Plus and iPhone 14 Pro Max) already has all the in-house technology they need to communicate via satellite — they just waited for Apple to flip the switch.
And that will happen soon, with Apple reveals (opens in new tab) that it and its satellite partner Globalstar are finally ready to make the feature live in November 2022.
Thanks to Emergency SOS via satellite, iPhone 14 users have a way to communicate with emergency services that don’t require a Wi-Fi or cellular connection — so the next time you’re exploring an area of the wilderness that isn’t available, if you have an iPhone 14 you don’t have to worry so much about how to get help when you’re in trouble.
You can’t use the feature to contact whoever you want, at least for now, which sadly means you don’t have to Instagram your adventures from remote locations. Emergency SOS via Satellite is, as the name suggests, only intended for contacting emergency services.
When it launches, Emergency SOS via Satellite will be added to the other new safety feature of the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Pro: crash detection. This feature (also found on the Apple Watch 8, Apple Watch SE 2, and Apple Watch Ultra) relies on various data your Apple device collects to determine whether you’ve been involved in a collision.
If it detects that you have been involved in a crash, your device can automatically contact emergency services, although you have a few seconds to cancel the automatic call in case the device makes a mistake.
For now, Emergency SOS via Satellite is only available in the US (including Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands) and Canada. Given that the feature has reportedly cost Apple $450 million to deploy in these regions (based on how much Apple says it has invested in U.S. infrastructure), we think it could be a while before the decision to make it available. expand further – Apple probably won’t want to spend more on satellite communications unless it’s certain the feature will be popular.
If you have an Android phone, it might not be long before you can use a similar satellite SOS feature – it’s been reported that Android 14 will bring satellite communications support to many of the best Android phones by 2023.