There have been at least five comments like this and I don’t understand how many people are making the same mistake. https://reddit.com/r/gadgets/comments/10rczg2/_/j6yrndz/?context=1

That was Qualcomm, the company that makes the processors for almost every Android phone, including Samsung's. https://www.qualcomm.com/news/releases/2023/01/qualcomm-introduces-snapdragon-satellite--the-world-s-first-sate

I think the batteries for the S23 and S23+ are around 200mAh higher -- and assumedly there's going to be some sort of efficiency gains from the new chips in them. But I'd wait for reviews, I think.

The thing causing that is crash detection, which is a completely different thing than the emergency SOS via satellite.

I think you might not understand what this is. iOS also has an emergency call thing, which functions similar to Samsung's (though it's slightly more difficult to activate, I've never done it by accident). That's existed for a long time, and would be on an iPhone 13 as well.

The thing the iPhone 14 added was the ability to contact emergency services even if you don't have cell service. It's an option within the existing emergency call system; if it detects you don't have service, it'll let you message search and rescue via a satellite system.

I also wonder if Apple will keep doing that. Like if you go from an iPhone 14 to an iPhone 16, are you going to get another two years free?

It's interesting because some dedicated emergency satellite devices actually work like that. My Garmin Inreach warns me every time I start it up that it will not do an emergency SOS call if I don't have an active subscription.

Apple says it's free for two years from when you get the phone, and hasn't said anything about how much it'll cost after that period. I bet they haven't decided yet, because... well, they won't have to deal with it for another year and a half at this point.

Agreed, but Elon said it’s not launching in beta until the end of this year. Given his track record of hitting deadlines that probably means we won’t actually be able to use this until, like, 2025

You need more than the chip. You also need special antennas, and the manufacturer has to make a deal with Qualcomm to activate the feature.

Yeah, I’m familiar with the lore. If you’re curious about how the video got made, why don’t you watch the Linus Tech Tips video explaining exactly that?

https://youtu.be/QKzmYsySGFQ

This is kind of a silly analogy. Gaming PCs, including prebuilts, custom, and laptops, are a $40 billion dollar a year business worldwide. Google alone makes that two months, Apple in less than that. The smartphone market is 10 times bigger than all of PC gaming. It’s like seeing someone fail a trig test (in, to be fair, a pretty embarrassing way), and concluding that they literally know nothing about all of math. Yes, I’m aware I’m feeding the troll. I’m bad at letting bad arguments lie

Yeah, that's fair. Serves me right for trying to come up with a new headline.

That’s just, like, your opinion man

Depends on what you're using it for.