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Apple extends Emergency SOS via satellite for an additional free year for existing iPhone 14 users (www.apple.com)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/apple_enthusiast@lemmy.world
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[–] [S] 70 points 2 years ago (7 children)

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.

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  • [–] 35 points 2 years ago (4 children)

    to get rescued, please give the numbers on your credit card.

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  • [–] 11 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    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

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  • [–] 16 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 11 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    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.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    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.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    They're probably not paying per incident, because that model doesn't work. They're paying per authorized device.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    A dedicated satellite device like inReach is $144/year for unlimited SOS and 10 standard text messages

    I think you’re overestimating the cost of data

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Less than "unlimited" isn't meaningfully cheaper to provide. It's $144/year and not thousands per use exactly and exclusively because you can't buy it when you need it.

    If you could buy it on demand, 99.999% of revenue disappears because there's no reason to pay for a subscription, and you have to massively raise the price per use for the service to break even.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    I can just tell you we’re paying them ~30% of the consumer price per device in a B2B deal, and I suspect Apple can demand a significantly lower rate when almost none of their devices will ever connect

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    It doesn't matter that very few devices connect. That's the only reason they have to volume to be affordable at all.

    If you took the total cost of having satellite coverage available and divided by the amount of satellite assisted rescues needed per year, the amount that a satellite company would need to charge just to break even would absolutely be thousands. Satellites are expensive. Rescues are rare.

    The only reason it's able to be something regular people can pay is because there are hundreds or thousands of people who don't ever use it paying into the pot. Without those people, the economics don't work. "Unlimited SOS" isn't any impact to the network at all, because frivolous use gets punished by other people.

    Apple being able to get you literally any discount at all is already a value add. (And they've completely footed the bill so far).

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  • [–] 8 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

    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

    Edit: at least in the US* I should have said

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  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago

    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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  • [+] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)
    [deleted]
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  • [–] [S] 1 point 2 years ago

    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.

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  • [–] -5 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Of course the Lemmy user thinks the service that costs money to run should be free.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Oh like the GPS system?

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    GPS is a US military system entirely payed for by taxpayers, that just spams out pings to any device listening. Civilian end users can’t transmit to it.

    And it wasn’t freely available to civilians for years, until the Korean Airlines Flight 007 was shot down in 1993 by the Soviets due to a navigational error causing them to drift into Soviet airspace.

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    • [–] 31 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    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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  • [+] 20 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 child)
    [deleted]
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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    $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.

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    • [+] 9 points 2 years ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)
    [deleted]
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  • [–] 10 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 10 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    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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  • [–] -1 points 2 years ago*

    It’s called keeping your options open. I don’t expect it to go paid, ever.

    Can you imagine the negative publicity if some family with little kids dies because it’s behind a paywall? Me neither. Won’t happen but it keeps their competitors off balance.

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  • [+] 4 points 2 years ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)
    [deleted]
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  • [–] 8 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    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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  • [–] -1 points 2 years ago*

    Releasing too much info gives your competitors an advantage. Keeping them in the dark keeps them guessing.

    Guessing they’ll be moving to starlink at some point in the future and it will get even more affordable.

    I don’t see it being an incredibly expensive service for them to provide given the obvious public relations gains, especially when they just said they’d be opening it for auto incidents too. Super high volume compared to a few (hundred?) rescues.

    That said, I could see the auto coverage being a paid service down the road. Pun intended.

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  • [+] 3 points 2 years ago* (1 child)
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  • [+] -1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 child)
    [deleted]
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