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.
to get rescued, please give the numbers on your credit card.
Transaction failed. Move to an area with better network service.
The price to be rescued is now $1000, in 30 minutes it will increase it to $2000. Would you like to be rescued?
Yes
Ask again later
Sorry, no rescuers are available in your area. Try again later.
It’s peak rescue time, Uber surge pricing is active
Just give me something for the pain and let me die
Sorry, that is not included in your apple care life plan, you need apple care life + pro for that. Do you want to upgrade?
It’s like that whole Volkswagen thing again!
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.
What if that number was 10 grand? Higher?
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.
I can’t imagine that Apple pays $10k per-incident to allow their phones to connect to a third party’s satellite network. As you point out, rescue services are a different story, but that’s independent of whether you contact them via satellite or standard cellular.
They’re probably not paying per incident, because that model doesn’t work. They’re paying per authorized device.
Yep. I agree. And most people have a card attached to their Apple ID so that may work.
RTFA, it’s free and always has been. They’ve never even floated a price.
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 don’t mind it if the ride is paid, I think putting a “sorry you didn’t pay in advance so you can’t get a ride when you need it” is the issue.
I think paying for emergency or medical services of any kind (outside of your income taxes) at all is the problem here.
Satellites do in fact go over other countries.
I was under the impression that SOS via satellite was still US only, seems they’ve since opened it up to more countries. That’s great!
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.
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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.
Of course the Lemmy user thinks the service that costs money to run should be free.
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).
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Capitalists do nothing for free because they are callous, heartless monsters.
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?
Not sure what you’re talking about. Did you even read the article? It’s free and always has been. They’ve never even brought up a price.
The stories of people saved are marketing gold for Apple.
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.
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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?
The implication is that Apple’s language is very specifically implying this is a fee-for-service product, but that they are waiving that cost for a defined time period. They may extend that again, or several more times, but they are going out of their way to NOT say it’s just free, or simply an included feature e.g. FindMy.
If their intent was to have it be an included service, they would NOT include the language about how long it will remain free.
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Ah thanks.
As always, the devil is in the details.
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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.
