This really should not be a paid service. Can you imagine the headlines: family died after being stranded because they didn’t pay for satellite rescue on their phone.
It sucks because this is one of those things you don’t need them until you really do. Pay as you go model would be ok for me. Emergency? Sure, take a 100€ from my credit card just get me the hell out of here.
That's more in line with what covering the costs with "only pay if you actually have to connect" looks like. Actual forest services offer similar programs in some places, where you pay a small annual fee as "insurance" against being liable for needing to be rescued if you're negligent and need it. Capacity is expensive and use of these types of services is simply not common enough to benefit from economies of scale. You can't make your costs back that way without charging out the ass when it's needed.
You act like the helicopter ride to bring you back to safety isn’t going to bankrupt you for the rest of your life anyway. This is America we’re talking about
I'd imagine this is one reason why they're extending the free service. It would be a PR nightmare for Apple if that were to occur.
But I think the biggest reason why is because the 14 models are still actively being sold by Apple themselves. The Emergency SOS feature is a big marketing point for those models so I can see them dropping the free service as they get dropped from sale.
Is Siri nationalized? No. And yet it uses cloud server computations.
Maybe a service model like 1 or 2 free calls per year then pay per call would be a better model.
That allows people to get themselves out of a bad situation and discover that this emergency function is useful. Then if a call is made later, it get credited to your cc attached to your Apple ID, just like buying an app.
Siri costs money and is free. This is a feature you don’t use unless you’re in an emergency situation. I would be okay to pay for it but not as a subscription as they were hinting.
Surely they have enough money to offer it free and just make it another selling point for iPhone over android. It’s not like they charge for Siri (yet).
I’d imagine they’d just roll it into AppleOne when time comes. Even if it were standalone at $30 it would be competitive for those more outdoorsy.
A lot of folks on online forums really don’t understand how shocking it is to even offer this kind of service for free for a year, much less two or more.
$30 wouldn’t be competitive at all. A basic Garmin InReach subscription is $15 a month.
With Apples massive user base, they should be able to just include it in Apple One or as a standalone for a couple bucks a month. They would instantly have more revenue just from that than Garmin does from InReach.
It really blows my mind that Apple doesn’t offer this as a free service for owners of the phone. I mean can you imagine this as a selling point for parents alone?
The only context to view their language (extending free year) is that they intend to switch to some form of a paid model i.e bundled or standalone.
I'm not commenting on whether that's good, or bad, just that it's clearly what they are planning on doing. Otherwise, they wouldn't use that specific language.
I did read the article but maybe I am confused so feel free to clarify for me.
The article states:
‘Apple extends Emergency SOS via satellite for an additional free year for existing iPhone 14 users’
So the implication is it isn’t free after that time.
What about other iPhone users? Is this free for everyone irregardless who has any model iPhone or just the 14?
That’s exactly what they’re doing right now. They’ve not made an indefinite commitment to it, but it’s the second free year for a device enter its second year.