Apple Makes Surprise Free Offer

 Apple Makes Surprise Free Offer To All iPhone 14 Users

When Apple launched the iPhone 14 series, it brought with it a key new feature: emergency SOS via satellite. It came with two years’ free access, and Apple has just made a surprise announcement: iPhone 14 users can have an extra year of access for free. The service, which allows users to contact emergency services when there was no cellular connection, went live a year ago. Which means that anyone with an iPhone 14 then would have one year of free trial access left by now.

That’s just been extended by a year, so, providing you have an iPhone 14, iPhone 14 Plus, iPhone 14 Pro or iPhone 14 Pro Max activated before today, you now have two years’ access again. It’s also available for all iPhone 15 series models, with two years’ free trial available for those phones from the moment they are activated, too. It’s not universally available, but it’s now in 16 countries and regions, Apple says, including the US, the UK, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Spain and Switzerland.

It means that if you go off-grid and unluckily get into difficulties, you can try and send an SOS message via satellite. It’s a very clever system. After all, satellites are not visible to the naked eye, so how do you point at them? Apple also thought of this, thankfully. Providing you are outdoors with a clear view of the sky, you can use its software and GPS information to guide you where you should be pointing. Once you have made contact, the iPhone starts a conversation by text message and shares your location with emergency responders as well as letting your emergency contacts know where you are.

In the US, Apple additionally introduced Roadside Assistance via satellite to “connect users to AAA if they have car trouble while outside of cellular and Wi-Fi coverage.” Outside emergency situations, the Find My app can be used to share your location with friends and family when you are out of cellular connection range. Apple says this service has already helped save lives in its first year of operation, including, “a man who was rescued after his car plummeted over a 400-foot cliff in Los Angeles.” This announcement means that anyone with an iPhone 14 or iPhone 15 can have around two years’ access to the service for free.

The reaction to the news above has been widespread. A year’s extension to the free provision of access to emergency SOS via satellite has been welcomed by many, and pored over by others. One analyst, posted on X, formerly Twitter, saying, “Unsurprised to see free satellite emergency messaging extended for another year because it is a hard service to charge for - who would deny someone in desperate need of help because they had not paid?” I see the logic of this, but I suspect there are ways around this without being heartless. Regular headlines of iPhones saving lives are worth a lot to Apple.

Bloomberg’s asks if it’s just that Apple has not yet sorted out its charging: “I wonder if the extension of free satellite SOS on the iPhone 14 is as simple as Apple not finalizing a monetization strategy. Building that backend to charge people + implementing that into iOS and possibly integrating it into Apple One bundles is a surprisingly long process.” I find this unconvincing. After all, there’s still another year to run before any cost would have been passed on. Even if progress has been slow, I wonder if Apple would conclude it was going to take another year or more to sort out.

Apple has bigger plans for satellite connectivity and is working on that. When Apple introduced Touch ID, it knew it was a precursor to Apple Pay. The company has already added to the satellite capability in the US by providing connection AAA for breakdowns. Maybe it has more to offer in future.