[HN Gopher] iPhone 13 to support LEO satellite communication
___________________________________________________________________
iPhone 13 to support LEO satellite communication
Author : buron
Score : 203 points
Date : 2021-08-29 15:06 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (9to5mac.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (9to5mac.com)
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| So is this for ocean going sailboats?
| ksec wrote:
| 5G from Space: An Overview of 3GPP Non-Terrestrial Networks
|
| https://arxiv.org/pdf/2103.09156.pdf
|
| I might as well submit that on HN.
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| Now your iPhone can dob you in to the police, even without cell
| phone reception!
| [deleted]
| davidjade wrote:
| As someone who has looked extensively into this for marine use I
| think it's highly unlikely this is Iridium. Standard Iridium is
| 2400 baud (no I did not leave out any zeros). Their new Certus
| service is much faster but the cost is $1600/mo for 1gb of
| service.
| pplante wrote:
| Does Starlink work for this application?
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| In principle it could but AFAIK Starlink is restricting
| installations to fixed land-based applications for now
| because they want a predictable number of customers in each
| satellite footprint. I expect they will extend it to marine
| applications in the future. Cruise ships in the near future
| (assuming cruise ships ever come back after COVID) will all
| have some kind of high-bandwidth LEO satellite internet
| connectivity.
| Thlom wrote:
| It will only work for coastal vessels until they get the
| sat-to-sat thing working. I know Elon talked about bouncing
| the signal off base stations on barges in the middle of the
| ocean, but not sure if that would be reliable enough.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| I'd guess they gonna charge good premium for offering
| "mobile" service.
| unixhero wrote:
| Cruise ships are back, and the business is booming with
| some fully booked ships.
|
| Vaccine passports and require a PCR plus quick test before
| departure for all crew and passengers should do the trick.
|
| Buut it's all a balance, see comments here for instance
| https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/28/travel/cruise-industry-
| co...
| hallway_monitor wrote:
| Sounds about right, charge people a couple dollars per minute
| and you can make a profit even paying 1600/gb.
|
| 2400bps is plenty fast for texting and coincidentally was the
| speed of my first modem!
| atty wrote:
| Honestly, if the coverage is good and it doesn't cost too much,
| this would get me to upgrade years before I was planning. I live
| in an area with frustratingly bad coverage from all providers,
| and if we ever go on a hike or something a little further out of
| the city, we get no service at all about 30% of the time. I'd
| like the extra peace of mind for any potential emergencies.
| Causality1 wrote:
| Emergency satellite beacons are fairly inexpensive, assuming
| emergencies are your only use case.
| atty wrote:
| Not the only use-case. It would also be nice to just have
| some limited communication abilities in areas pretty close to
| our house where we currently have non-negligible dead zones.
|
| But thank you, I'd never heard of those before.
| nerfhammer wrote:
| I've wondered why they don't implement LoRA, if they want
| another type of radio network. You could message other
| iPhones even if none of you have a cell signal. Low power,
| doesn't need a big antenna.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| The Garmin Inreach is a hiker staple, at least in my part
| of the world.
|
| You can activate a GPS-located SOS and send messages home
| to check in.
| hesdeadjim wrote:
| I frequently mountain bike alone in areas without reception.
| I bought a PLB1 so I have an "oh shit" button if something
| goes wrong (or I run into someone else in a similar
| situation). No monthly fee was the huge selling point to me.
| I could care less if I can text or pair my phone.
|
| I feel massively safer having this beacon in my pack. It also
| makes a great, albeit expensive, gift for friends who are
| similarly active.
| wodenokoto wrote:
| When I saw the headline my first thought was "are those the
| European gps satellites?"
|
| It's not - they're called Galileo - but it made me think: do
| modern gps devices only connect to the American GPS satellites or
| has gps become a catch-all phrase for all the different systems
| and do iPhone read location from both?
| bellyfullofbac wrote:
| People call the tiny display with underpowered computers that
| they buy and attach to their car's dashboard "GPS"...
| lxgr wrote:
| Modern smartphones connect to at least three constellations
| these days (GPS, GLONASS and Galileo), but it's indeed become a
| term used to describe the entire family of technologies. The
| technical term would be GNSS (global navigation satellite
| system).
| yreg wrote:
| GPS is just the US Space Force network.
|
| iPhones support GPS, Galileo (ESA), GLONASS (Roscosmos), QZSS
| (JAXA) and so-called assisted GPS - location computed from cell
| towers.
| 05 wrote:
| Assisted GPS is not (solely) the wifi/cell tower
| triangulation, it's a technology that provides the receiver
| with an up to date GNSS satellite ephemeris to reduce time to
| first fix from minutes to seconds.
| fulafel wrote:
| A-GPS/A-GNSS is orthogonal to cell site triangulation. It
| uses the data connection to fetch information to augment the
| satellite radio signals.
| corty wrote:
| GPS has always been a generic term, the american GPS system was
| always actually known as NAVSTAR GPS (but usually called "the
| GPS").
| sjburt wrote:
| In the space industry (specifically, the part of the industry
| that writes academic papers on global navigation), "GNSS" is
| used as the generic term, GPS means the American GPS.
| 22c wrote:
| >has gps become a catch-all phrase for all the different
| systems and do iPhone read location from both?
|
| Modern "GPS" chipsets work with multiple SatNav systems. My
| phone has GPS, GLONASS, BeiDou and Galileo capability.
| behnamoh wrote:
| iPhone could have teleport technology and I would still not buy
| it due to iOS 15's privacy concerns.
| [deleted]
| owlbite wrote:
| Because google phone is so much better? Even if you remove
| the google suite, it's still very much the wild wild west of
| privacy whenever you install an app.
| behnamoh wrote:
| In economics terms, my preferences are not complete. You
| can look it up if you bother to understand why "if A is
| bad, I don't necessarily buy the alternative B".
| m4rtink wrote:
| There are other non-mainstream mobile platforms, not just
| iOS and Android.
|
| Sure, they are not yet as polished as those where a cult
| like controll freak or a private data merchant dump a lot
| of money, but one has to start somewhere.
| mackrevinack wrote:
| but if you ever got enough false positives that the police
| knock down your door you could just use the teleport feature
| to get the hell out of there!
| behnamoh wrote:
| Not if Apple and the police know your destination!
| [deleted]
| kube-system wrote:
| Most devices also support GLONASS these days, because Russia
| passed a law that you can't sell any devices there that support
| GPS and not GLONASS
| l31g wrote:
| Starlink + Apple collab?
| lxgr wrote:
| Not this year at least.
|
| Mobile ground stations (i.e. anything lighter than a few pound
| and using less than a few watt) will be L-band, and Starlink
| uses the much higher frequency Ka band (>= 20 GHz).
|
| They also require quite sophisticated steering/beamforming.
| mrfusion wrote:
| Adding onto the SOS idea. It would be cool set an automatic
| checkin and perhaps an auto SOS if you don't acknowledge you're
| ok every 30 min.
|
| I'm picturing for hiking or kayaking alone in remote areas.
| andylynch wrote:
| Yes, this is a great idea and anyone going going off the grid
| should seriously consider something like this for que kings go
| sideways Having it in an iPhone would make it much more
| accessible, although you can do this today with the likes of
| Garmin inReach.
| GeekyBear wrote:
| Bloomberg's Gurman previously reported on this as a skunkworks
| project several years ago.
|
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-12-20/apple-has...
| DaiPlusPlus wrote:
| So Apple's trying their hand at their own StarLink, perhaps?
| GeekyBear wrote:
| The reporting so far has been about making their devices work
| with existing satellite constellations.
| chrispeel wrote:
| Seems to me like the Globalstar Spot messaging service would be
| an easier service for Apple to support than satellite voice. It's
| useful for emergencies and other low-bandwidth communication
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPOT_Satellite_Messenger
| stirlo wrote:
| iPhone 13? Surely this is the kind of feature that would require
| a redesign not something to introduce in an S year.
|
| Also seems implausible when the 13 is already in volume
| manufacturing and this is the first we've heard of it...
| jl6 wrote:
| Hasn't it been an S year for the last 3 years?
| lxgr wrote:
| This would be a baseband only change really. Iridium has about
| the same frequency (1-2 GHz), directionality (omnidirectional
| antennas are good enough) and power constraints 1-2 Watt) as
| good old GSM.
|
| It's just the spectrum that is very, very expensive (due to a
| cell being hundreds of kilometers in diameter).
| 6gvONxR4sf7o wrote:
| This headline is so misleading. How about "Investor expects that
| iPhone 13 will support LEO satellite communication?"
| yokem55 wrote:
| Has there been a breakthrough on how small an Iridium
| receiver/phone can be? Because otherwise I'm going to call BS on
| this report. LEO satellite receivers are typically much bigger
| than what can be crammed into an iphone.
| 2Gkashmiri wrote:
| and there is still no room for a headphone jack.
| vitaflo wrote:
| Iridium operates at 1620 MHz. Many cell signals operate much
| lower than that (ie some 4G at 700mhz). If you can fit a 4G
| antenna in a phone you can easily fit one for iridium.
| jsjohnst wrote:
| > If you can fit a 4G antenna in a phone you can easily fit
| one for iridium
|
| The frequency isn't the issue, it's the distance it needs to
| transmit. Increased output power/longer distance needs a
| bigger antenna. Iridium / Starlink / other LEO satellites are
| >300 miles above the earth. Your smartphone doesn't have even
| remotely enough power to transmit that far, good luck getting
| even 1/10th that distance for even a very shaky connection.
|
| As a concrete example, your phone's cell radio transmits at
| 100-200mW into an antenna which has minimal additional gain.
| Iridium / Inmarsat phones transmit at around 10W into a
| higher gain and significantly larger antenna. That's two
| orders of magnitude more EIRP in the end.
|
| Apple _might_ be able to do an emergency beacon like
| transmission from an iPhone into LEO, but assuredly can not
| do a continuous transmission like in a phone call, even at
| very poor audio quality, without a relatively massive change
| in phone dimensions.
| vitaflo wrote:
| Transmit power has nothing to do with antenna length. In
| fact if you change the antenna length you change the
| resonating frequency of the antenna. Satellites are also
| line of sight and most sat antennas radiate straight up
| instead of multi-directional like cell antennas.
|
| In any case iridium devices usually output max 2w. Same as
| 4G.
| jsjohnst wrote:
| > In any case iridium devices usually output max 2w.
|
| Not according to Iridium's data sheets I just read and
| provided values in my post
|
| > Same as 4G
|
| Nope, back in AMPS days power could be up to 2W, but 4G
| UEs are almost always limited to a maximum of 23dBm (aka
| 200mW).
|
| > Transmit power has nothing to do with antenna length.
|
| Correct if you are purely talking about antenna design
| from a generic pov. In the case of a phone, it does
| matter because you can't transmit 10W into an
| omnidirectional antenna pressed up against someone's ear
| due to current regulations, so it necessitates moving the
| antenna further away (hence one reason sat phones have a
| "whip antenna", but there are other reasons too). This
| effectively makes the antenna "larger".
| turminal wrote:
| The problem here is the distance to the satellite, which is
| an order of magnitude bigger than what 4G technology is
| capable of.
| SOLAR_FIELDS wrote:
| I have a Garmin InReach Mini. It uses the Iridium satellite
| network. No calls, but it can do texts and data. It's
| dimensions are 23x23mm. It worked quite well in the Arctic
| wilderness this summer. So I would say putting satellite
| capability within a phone size form factor seems quite
| achievable.
|
| I was quite happy to read this news simply for the fact that if
| true it should hopefully cut into the arm-and-leg price Garmin
| charges for me to use my InReach to access the satellite
| network.
| kilroy123 wrote:
| I used the bigger bulkier one back in Antarctica several
| years ago and it worked great with the old constellation.
|
| If this was baked into an iPhone I doubt the server would be
| cheaper.
| mrfusion wrote:
| Would it work in a forest or inside a cargo container? Or
| does it need line of site?
| SOLAR_FIELDS wrote:
| In addition to the sibling comment, it worked for me inside
| my tent - so it can work inside some containers provided
| the signal can make it through.
| lxgr wrote:
| Forest (usually) yes, cargo container (most likely) no. As
| a rule of thumb, if you can't get a GPS fix, you won't be
| able to use Iridium either.
| rhn_mk1 wrote:
| From https://buy.garmin.com/en-US/US/p/592606
|
| > 5.17 x 9.90 x 2.61 cm
|
| That's the same order of magnitude of volume as a phone.
| gregoriol wrote:
| Except the size of the antenna!
| [deleted]
| est31 wrote:
| I've thought you can have really small satellite phones? Think
| something like Thuraya SG-2520 from 2007, or NAL Shout Nano.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| I would also raise an eyebrow at power consumption/battery life
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| Small satellite receivers are possible and exist for extremely
| low bandwidth signals. Text messages could be feasible. There
| are small devices on the market for sending texts via
| satellite.
|
| The part of this article about FaceTime calls over satellite
| sounds like editorialization, though. FaceTime requires a
| relatively large amount of bandwidth to pull off, which isn't
| in the realm of possibility with current systems.
| ben_w wrote:
| How much data would be available? Apple have been doing stuff
| adjacent to this NVIDIA announcement (116 bytes/frame of key-
| point data, with a GAN or a 3D model for reconstruction) from
| last year since at least Memoji: https://youtu.be/NqmMnjJ6GEg
| baybal2 wrote:
| > Has there been a breakthrough on how small an Iridium
| receiver/phone can be?
|
| Smallest devices being able to access satcom were the size of a
| pager 15 years ago, and most functioned like that.
|
| Power envelopes definitely allow for that, especially if you
| only need to send individual messages of few hundred kilobytes.
| sneak wrote:
| No, it won't.
| lxgr wrote:
| It might not, but it's entirely within reach as of today. The
| technology exists; what remains is a scaling/economic problem.
| Apple is pretty good at solving those.
| sneak wrote:
| It is only within reach because of SpaceX, and they haven't
| launched anything for Apple or any stealth Apple subsidiaries
| yet (unless they somehow launched several Apple LEO comsats
| under the guise of an NRO launch or something, which would be
| outright lying, not something I believe SpaceX would do).
|
| Just because it's possible doesn't mean it actually happened.
| bobowzki wrote:
| I just don't see how they will fit a good enough antenna. I
| highly doubt this will happen.
| loonster wrote:
| Maybe it uses an external antenna that is plugged in the
| headphone jack...
| [deleted]
| gambiting wrote:
| Like one of these Breitling emergency watches where you pull
| out a long cord out of the watch and then it sends an SOS
| signal. Except that with the watch the antenna is single use
| only to prevent abuse.
| exikyut wrote:
| oooo. TIL!
|
| The official webpage with absolutely no interesting
| information: https://www.breitling.com/us-en/emergency/
|
| There are a few blurry fractions of a second of the antenna
| being deployed here:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJvyZNHnMGE
|
| What it sounds like over a radio:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlC5frFhjqs
|
| It comes with a tester (basically a radio with no tuning
| knob): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3R7lhLqVo8
|
| Edit: I found some more footage of it being used in this
| highly dramatic, uh, _presentation_ :
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2y-TQSL6XE
| gambiting wrote:
| It was actually used on Top Gear, because of licencing
| issues the scene is very difficult to find but someone
| recorded it:
|
| https://youtu.be/qHRzUTyi1GE
| exikyut wrote:
| Oh, nice!
|
| They appear to have reused that footage in another
| episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgRom5gINtI
| Fordec wrote:
| Communicating 100km up is far far easier than communicating
| 100km sideways. Much less air to go through, and less
| obstructions. A few space startups out there have missions in
| the sky right now able to do this. The trick is to but high
| gain on the satellite side to compensate and phased array
| communications has been coming a long way to really target the
| power into a directed path than just beaconing.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| > Communicating 100km up is far far easier than communicating
| 100km sideways
|
| Yes, and no. it depends on the frequency.
|
| However I don't want to put a phased array shitting out 4-15
| watts of power at 1.6gigs near my head. I doubt it'll pass
| the emissions certification either.
| amcoastal wrote:
| This is good because now they don't have to wait for me to be in
| cell service to scan my phone.
| geocrasher wrote:
| I'm going to call it exactly as I see it: This is fake.
|
| 1) LEO. Low Earth Orbit. Starlink is in a lower than usual orbit,
| and look at the immense effort/expense to make base station
| antennae that can reliably communicate with the satellites.
| They're not going to magically stuff that into an iPhone.
|
| EDIT: Some replies have said "Hey, Iridium is LEO". The same
| antenna issue applies.
|
| 2) Bandwidth. Unless Apple has been secretly launching their own
| fleet of satellites, where are they getting the bandwidth? I
| doubt it's Starlink. Any incumbent satellite operators (such as
| Thuraya, mentioned in another comment) are in Geostationary
| orbit, not LEO. This requires an even better antenna. See #1.
|
| I don't claim to be an expert in any of this, adding this
| capability an iPhone would be as disruptive as the iPhone itself
| was. Apple was able to keep the iPhone under wraps, but it's
| impossible to do that with satellite launches and FCC filings as
| we've learned with SpaceX. So for these reasons I call Fake.
| Maybe next decade.
| mortenjorck wrote:
| _> They 're not going to magically stuff that into an iPhone._
|
| This sounds a bit like Ed Colligan's immortal "they're not
| going to just walk in."
|
| The thing is, you're right, of course they're not going to just
| tweak a few things and somehow fit a satellite antenna into a
| phone. They're going to put Apple-level resources into
| recruiting a team of the field's leading experts and funding
| them for years to do it.
|
| As you say, this would be a genuinely disruptive development in
| mobile tech. It seems at very least plausible that Apple would
| see this as a problem worth throwing a spare billion at
| solving.
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| I'm sure Apple would love to find a way to bypass the mobile
| operators, especially in the US.
| mcny wrote:
| >> This sounds a bit like Ed Colligan's immortal "they're not
| going to just walk in."
|
| Some context for others like me
|
| > Sarah Jane Tribble and Dean Takahashi, reporting for the
| San Jose Mercury News on Palm CEO Ed Colligan's remarks two
| weeks ago regarding Apple's prospects in the mobile phone
| market:
|
| >> Responding to questions from New York Times correspondent
| John Markoff at a Churchill Club breakfast gathering Thursday
| morning, Colligan laughed off the idea that any company --
| including the wildly popular Apple Computer -- could easily
| win customers in the finicky smart-phone sector.
|
| >> "We've learned and struggled for a few years here figuring
| out how to make a decent phone," he said. "PC guys are not
| going to just figure this out. They're not going to just walk
| in."
|
| https://daringfireball.net/2006/11/colligan_head_stuck
| AnotherGoodName wrote:
| It'll be low bandwidth of course. The starlink antenna size is
| just to give more bandwidth. Bigger antenna means less error
| correction which means more bandwidth for other things. Voice
| compressed can be intelligible at 300bps. You can do that with
| a smaller antenna and more error correction. Mobile Satellite
| phones are already similar in size to other phones.
| geocrasher wrote:
| Per phone might be low bandwidth, but tens of thousands or
| hundreds of thousands of phones is not low bandwidth.
| Retric wrote:
| And how many iPhones are going to be used out of network?
|
| I can see people paying an extreme rate of say 10$/minute
| with serious warnings in a true emergency. But worldwide it
| might only be 100 phones at a time even with 10's of
| millions of iPhones. Meanwhile averaging 100 calls * 10$/
| minute is 1/2 billion dollars a year which could pay for
| bandwidth on LEO satellites.
|
| Those numbers are of course pulled from thin air, but
| iridium suffers because few are going to keep such
| expensive service on a just in case basis. However, the
| technology and economics are really close to working out.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| I carry an iridium hotspot when away from civilization
| and I'd definitely use an eSIM in my iPhone to get access
| to LEO sms or voice calls in a pinch. One less device to
| carry.
| nullityrofl wrote:
| > Per phone might be low bandwidth
|
| Yes, but you used the comparison to Starlink receivers.
| Per-phone is all that matters to refute your receiver size
| concern.
|
| The reporting suggests that Apple partnered with Globalstar
| for delivery. I don't think anyone is under any illusions
| that Apple suddenly launched a LEO fleet but there's a lot
| of providers of satellite mobile telephony in the space and
| Globalstar is one of them. Low bandwidth satellite does not
| take huge hardware anymore.
|
| You can buy Iridium or Globalstar mobile hotspots that are
| handheld in size (e.g., Iridium Go!). Many trail runners
| carry Garmin InReach which is phone-sized.
| jsjohnst wrote:
| > Mobile Satellite phones are already similar in size to
| other phones
|
| As someone who owns a pretty big smartphone (iPhone 12 Pro
| Max) and both a current gen Iridium and Inmarsat _phone_ (aka
| not a handheld two way pager, like the Garmin devices), I can
| assure you they aren't similar in size in the slightest, even
| with the antenna stowed.
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| This. And it's not just that the starlink antenna is bigger;
| it also _moves_ (virtually -- it 's a phased array) to follow
| the moving satellite. Pointing at the satellite (either with
| motors or with phased array technology) is absolutely
| essential for high-bandwidth LEO. Iridium antennas don't
| follow the satellite; they're effectively omnidirectional so
| their gain and S/N ratio are terrible. And that's good enough
| for the 2400bps Iridium provides. But it's nowhere near what
| a 4G or 5G land-based connection provides to a normal
| smartphone.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| I could see an external accessory (that you plug via the
| lightning port) that has a radio and external antenna to
| connect to sat networks. Maybe extra batteries too.
|
| However, it's very un-apple-like to do something like that.
| long11l wrote:
| Apple has a long history of forcing features into external
| devices
| nashashmi wrote:
| Agree. This might be planned for iPhone 14. And won't have
| internet. Just low bandwidth apps. Like messaging and low
| quality phone calls. The only question is what will pricing
| look like. I'm betting free for emergency and hourly for non
| emergency.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| Marine weather is another big thing. It's not exactly low
| bandwidth, nor huge (maybe 100kb-1mb every 8 hours) but
| provides sailors with huge value.
| Meandering wrote:
| I think 1 and 2 are connected. Apple sees the cellular
| communication game from the perspective of their ecosystem.
| Improving network agnosticism is supportive of that
| perspective. We see that Apple wants to deliver a premium
| experience for a premium price. I assume that LEO or Lower than
| LEO communications could be supported by auxiliary products. A
| small "hotspot" type device(comm array) to couple with the
| Apple ecosystem? This future proofs the ecosystem to partner
| with a communications swarm or launch their own as launch
| prices drop.
|
| I'd say it is possible in the context of what I stated. But,
| the article's characterization seems too good to be true.
| TrainedMonkey wrote:
| You are right that transparent high-bandwidth satellite fall
| back is not in the cards at the moment. I will challenge you
| that high bandwidth is a hard requirement in this case. If
| Apple can integrate emergency short text + location capability
| at a low marginal cost, it will make iPhone platform more
| attractive to people who aspire spending time outside of cell
| coverage.
|
| First, let's examine some limitations we are dealing with:
|
| 1. On the receiving side the trade is power projected on the
| receiving terminal vs bandwidth. At lower bandwidth we can have
| quite reasonable power requirements, think GPS antennas. High
| bandwidth applications are all limited by FCC power per cm2
| projection limits. Without those limits LEO satellites could
| focus transmit onto a much smaller area and enable high-
| bandwidth receivers that are basically cell-phone sized. Given
| that GPS is a thing, we can definitely have low-bandwidth phone
| integrated satellite antenna.
|
| 2. On the transmit side primary trade is again transmit power
| vs bandwidth. Iridium phones are a thing
| https://www.iridium.com/products/iridium-extreme/, so low
| bandwith transmit is feasible.
|
| Overall, I think it is quite unlikely that Apple is adding a
| dedicated on-handset satellite coms. It is possible, maybe even
| likely, they will be enhancing existing satellite communication
| capability or adding external devices. Even if they are
| enhancing satellite coms the provider is definitely not
| Starlink because phased array power requirements are staggering
| for mobile applications. So, assuming there is some truth to
| this leak, it is maybe 1, probably not 3, and almost definitely
| not 2:
|
| 1. Upgrading the existing GPS capability with new antenna /
| silicon. Most likely to support other positioning
| constellations https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-competitors-
| to-GPS, but in era of SDRs maybe sat signals in general.
|
| 2. The claim specifically talks about phone/text calls, to make
| that happen they will either need to integrate with Iridium or
| back a new not yet deployed service. On Iridium front there are
| a couple of problems, but they don't seem insurmountable:
| Iridium modems are expensive and iPhone power/thermal
| requirements will mean developing logic that is significantly
| better than anything on the market. Of course Iridium IP
| licensing or company acquisition would be big news breaking
| quite a bit before we see any devices, so this is almost
| certainly not happening.
|
| 3. First party integration of external satellite antenna into
| iPhone ecosystem. Introducing Apple emergency beacon. Deploy
| this beacon anywhere in the world and get emergency
| communications for affordable* price. Basically a modern, Apple
| sleek, version of
| https://www.iridium.com/blog/2012/05/23/iridium-connected-de...
| .
| api wrote:
| The big problem I see is power. Starlink base uses about 100W.
| Even for a low bandwidth link I imagine this would drain
| batteries quick.
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| Power is not an issue for a very low-bandwidth system like
| Iridium, which only provides 2400bps. Starlink's bandwidth is
| 10,000x higher, and in a nutshell that's why they need a lot
| more power. Starlink also uses an active phased-array
| antenna, while Iridium uses a passive ("dumb")
| omnidirectional antenna. This also contributes to a greater
| power budget for Starlink.
| webmobdev wrote:
| The old cellular phones once had an external antennae too. But
| current modern cellular phones have managed to pack it
| internally. So perhaps this could be possible for satellite
| phones too, one day.
|
| Technically, it may be possible but I think this is fake too -
| In India, you cannot own and operate a satellite phone without
| getting an NOC (no objection certificate) from the Home
| Ministry (who are in charge of internal security in india).
| Apple will not be able to sell its phone in India if it adds
| satellite telephony to it.
|
| Most countries will react the same - no country likes to allow
| communication within its borders that it can't monitor (it's an
| obvious national security threat).
| GravitasFailure wrote:
| Worse, it's a crime to bring a satellite phone into India
| without first getting an NOC, and even then only ones that
| operate exclusively on INMARSAT will be authorized. China has
| a similar ban, so if this is real, traveling to China and
| India (among other countries) with an Apple device is going
| to turn into a legal minefield unless Apple has figured out
| something to work around that.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| Lol you think Apple wouldn't be aware of this. Obviously
| they will disable this as soon as you enter their airspace.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| I'm still waiting for the translucent iPhone that Robert Scoble
| assured us that Apple would definitely announce three or four
| years ago.
| tyingq wrote:
| It does say "phone calls and text" and not "internet", so
| Starlink probably isn't the best comparison. Iridium phones
| aren't that bulky these days. I'm also skeptical, but mostly
| about what the motivation would be to do it and who would pay
| for it.
| jsjohnst wrote:
| > Iridium phones aren't that bulky these days
|
| I own both an Iridium phone and an Inmarsat phone, both are
| current gen. If you don't consider them bulky, then you must
| be used to using an iPad/tablet as a phone. The antenna alone
| is longer than my iPhone 12 Max.
| tyingq wrote:
| The context was that my comment was in response to
| magically stuffing a 2 foot diameter Starlink antenna into
| an iPhone. Where the challenge is instead stuffing one of
| these into an iPhone: https://www.iridium.com/phones/
|
| Still challenging, but maybe not impossible.
| jsjohnst wrote:
| Look at the antenna on those (or any other satellite
| phone). When the antenna is extended (required for
| continuous transmission like with even a poor audio
| quality call), it's _HUGE_ compared to anything possible
| in an iPhone form factor.
| kube-system wrote:
| Iridium has devices on their network that look pretty dang
| small to me: https://www.iridium.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2021/07/mini3.jpg
|
| And how much of that is just the IPX7 case?
| jsjohnst wrote:
| For one thing, I said phone as did GP I was replying too.
| That's not a phone (aka needing a continuous real time
| connection), that's a low bandwidth data transmitter (aka
| a best effort single transmission that can take multiple
| minutes to send). Even still, look at the size of the
| antenna on that. It's definitely not all plastic there.
| If you've ever seen a tear down of a modern smart phone,
| you'll realize 95% of the space is either battery or
| screen. The space used by antenna (which is often part of
| the outer metal ring) or circuit board is extremely small
| in comparison.
| kube-system wrote:
| Here's the antenna inside. Looks like a small helical
| antenna.
|
| https://fccid.io/img.php?id=1547768&img=bg1.png
|
| There are certainly other possible designs, as those
| creative frame-antennas that apple so infamously
| popularized with the iPhone 4. Iridium uses a 1.6 ghz
| signal, there's a lot of creative packaging that can be
| done at those frequencies.
|
| And definitely, if this is in an iPhone, I'm sure it's
| low bandwidth use only.
| tacocataco wrote:
| Wow thanks for sharing the picture!
| jsjohnst wrote:
| > Here's the antenna inside. Looks like a small helical
| antenna.
|
| Thanks for proving my point and saving me the hassle of
| looking up the antenna inside. There is no way that would
| fit inside an iPhone, even with Apple's creativity in
| antenna design.
|
| The frequency, as previously stated, is _not_ the
| problem, it's the transmission power. You need a lot more
| more watts of EIRP to transmit reliably 350 miles
| (distance to LEO) than you do for 3 miles (average
| distance to a cell tower). A modern smart phone transmits
| at about 100-200mW on average, Iridium operates at around
| 2 orders of magnitude higher transmit power than that.
| dhuk_2018 wrote:
| https://ast-science.com/spacemobile/
| mrgordon wrote:
| $ASTS and others are launching large LEO constellations
| starting in March from what I understand. They have major
| partnerships with Vodafone, AT&T, and more.
| bbarnett wrote:
| Soon we'll just have a Dyson sphere around the earth.
| ginko wrote:
| Iridium is in LEO and uses L-band
| gist wrote:
| I don't know if you are right or not. But what you are saying
| reminds me of I think it was the 70's when someone who was
| involved in early trunked car phones told me that there was no
| way a phone could be portable that it would take to much power
| to be in a light enough form factor.
| cjohansson wrote:
| I agree it's fake, there is phones on the market that has phone
| and internet via satellite but you need a subscription and it's
| expensive. The average Joe don't have that. I think this is a
| PR-trick to suggest Apple is relevant and innovative, Apple
| after Jobs is safe and predictable and not exciting like this
| Jcowell wrote:
| You guys are forgetting that Apple is turning into a service
| company and already has a subscription product (Apple One)
| that the average joe may be subscribed to.
|
| And how is the M1 chip not an innovation on its own ?
| tomjen3 wrote:
| I don't think this is going to happen, but what would stop
| Apple from making a deal with Starlink? Or Iridium?
|
| Phones are hard to differentiate these days, but "can be
| reached anywhere, always, no matter what" may be the last big
| differentiator left.
| kkirsche wrote:
| I think this is more likely incorrectly understood leaks.
| Similar to what occurred with the Nintendo Switch OLED. My
| guess is the chips and whatnot the iPhone will use will support
| this but Apple won't enable it in the software.
|
| I believe this is equivalent to fm radio capabilities in some
| of the iPhone chips
| lxgr wrote:
| Have you heard of Iridium?
| mikestew wrote:
| Have you seen the antenna on Iridium devices? Think that's
| going to fly on an iPhone? Yes, we all know that there is
| existing technology, no need to ask rhetorical questions.
| Just saying "Iridium" doesn't solve the problems that still
| need to be solved, though.
| Fatalist_ma wrote:
| https://www.itabnav.com/545-large_default/iridium-go.jpg
| not that huge of an antenna...
| mikestew wrote:
| _not that huge of an antenna..._
|
| I would argue that you've just illustrated my point. It
| also wouldn't take a lot to convince me that you're being
| facetious.
| Fatalist_ma wrote:
| Well it's a finger-sized antenna. Admittedly all I know
| about antennas is that size matters. An Iphone is bigger
| than a finger, why is it inconceivable that it could have
| a comparable antenna on its surface? Also for an Iphone
| this would be just one rarely-used feature, it could get
| by with somewhat worse reception and lower bandwidth than
| a dedicated satellite phone.
| detaro wrote:
| "satellite phone, but doesn't work reliably" doesn't
| sound like something Apple would waste space and money
| on.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| AirTags, MacBook Pro keyboards, iPhone 4, Siri
|
| The list is endless.
| detaro wrote:
| At least two of those are not _designed_ to be bad.
| lxgr wrote:
| Mobile phones used to have antennas like this in the
| early 2000s, and now they don't anymore. I don't know
| that much about antenna design, but I'd suspect that
| there might be a similar opportunity here?
| turminal wrote:
| That's still at least an order of magnitude bigger than
| the space available for this thing inside an iPhone
| GeekyBear wrote:
| > Unless Apple has been secretly launching their own fleet of
| satellites, where are they getting the bandwidth?
|
| For text messages or sending an emergency beacon signal, you
| don't need much bandwidth.
|
| The surprise is Kuo specifying voice over IP as a supported
| feature, but modern codecs can really squeeze voice down now
| days.
|
| >Lyra, which is now hosted on GitHub, can compress audio down
| to as little as 3 kilobits per second while still ensuring a
| sound quality that compares well with other codecs that require
| much greater bandwidth.
|
| https://siliconangle.com/2021/04/06/google-open-sources-lyra...
| lxgr wrote:
| Satellite phone systems are using 2.4 kbps codecs, so while
| Lyra might significantly raise the voice quality bar, it
| would not really change the bandwidth requirements.
| [deleted]
| wongarsu wrote:
| Iridium receivers are already quite manageable in size. An
| ultra-low-bandwidth version with smaller, cheaper receivers as
| part of their new constellation doesn't seem that far fetched.
| You only need 4kbit/s or so (after all the iPhone has plenty of
| power to run a good voice codec).
| AdamJacobMuller wrote:
| I agree it's unlikely, but, not for technical reasons.
|
| Iridium would work fine for this if you limit it to
| iMessage/SMS and anything else low-bandwidth (I would imagine
| they add 911/SOS support too).
|
| I have a Garmin InReach which operates on Iridium, it's a 5+
| year-old-device which works fine with Iridium in very
| challenging conditions and isn't very much larger than an
| iPhone.
|
| Considering (some of) the commercial side of this, I strongly
| suspect the Iridium network has more than enough capacity for
| such a plan and Iridium could easily support it technically and
| they could work out some reasonable commercial terms with Apple
| for this. If Iridium doesn't want to work with Apple the
| company could surely be acquired for effectively pocket change
| by Apple and if they did release such hardware and charge a
| monthly subscription for "100% global coverage" it could be
| pretty quickly profitable.
|
| But, with all of that said, I'm really not sure why Apple would
| want to do this. Like I said, I have an InReach, I'm commonly
| in areas with no cell service and so for me this would be a
| clear win and I would love it, but, I suspect I'm squarely in
| the minority.
| ghaff wrote:
| But it's still a somewhat larger device dedicated to a single
| function.
|
| For me, I'm not sure I'd want inReach-type capability in my
| phone if it was another monthly subscription fee. I'd prefer
| a separate extremely rugged device given that, when I might
| really need it, there's a decent chance I'm in really crappy
| weather, have gloves on, my face covered, etc. Who wants to
| be fiddling with their phone under those conditions?
| pbourke wrote:
| The problem with any "second device" is that it needs to be
| with you and charged up when you need it. My phone fits the
| bill already, so adding a fallback for ubiquitous basic
| connectivity would be a win.
| ghaff wrote:
| The most important use cases for the InReach are pretty
| specific though. I'm not likely to be strolling down the
| frozen food aisle in the local grocery store and suddenly
| wish I had my InReach on me. Sure, backup iMessage
| capability when I'm out of cell phone service range would
| be nice. But I'm not going to pay the amount that Garmin
| charges for that capability. (Though some people perhaps
| would if they routinely go places with no service.)
| Jcowell wrote:
| You might not even need to. If they put it in the Apple
| One Subscription , they've already won.
| ghaff wrote:
| Well, sure. Apple One is already essentially a no-brainer
| for me once my "free" Apple TV+ expires. If they add more
| into that, why not?
| voisin wrote:
| I don't think you have to wait. I had some free time left
| on Apple TV+ when I subscribed to Apple One and then they
| started crediting me monthly for the value of the TV+
| subscription.
| ghaff wrote:
| Interesting. I'll have to run the numbers.
| AdamJacobMuller wrote:
| The InReach has some advantage here too.
|
| When off, the battery seems to last "effectively forever"
| and when on it has "several days" of battery life even
| when doing constant communication with a satellite for
| location updates.
| AdamJacobMuller wrote:
| InReach is a monthly subscription anyway.
| ghaff wrote:
| Right. My point was that, if I'm going to pay a monthly
| satellite subscription fee one way or the other, I'm
| probably going to go with the separate device that is
| designed with wilderness situations in mind.
| scarecrowbob wrote:
| I dunno how much of a minority you're in.
|
| If I could just by an iPhone13 and not have to also have an
| inreach, that would sell me on it.
|
| That's not a massive market segment for sure, but I know
| plenty of folks living in vans in southern Utah who likely
| would do the same; so there is an identifable market even if
| its small.
| brundolf wrote:
| Cell service can be spotty outside of urban centers. I could
| imagine some people benefitting without hiking to remote
| locations.
| CodeWriter23 wrote:
| > I have a Garmin InReach
|
| The photo seems to indicate the InReach is 3-4x as thick as
| an iPhone. I couldn't find specs. Would you care to share the
| actual size?
| ashtonkem wrote:
| Given the size of my Garmin 64st, I bet that most of that
| thickness is down case design. Apple sacrifices a lot of
| durability in the name of making the "thinnest iPhone
| ever", while Garmin often goes in the exact opposite
| direction for fairly obvious reasons.
| mikestew wrote:
| 2.04" x 3.90" x 1.03" (5.17 x 9.90 x 2.61 cm)
|
| It's chunky. Hard to say how much of that is radio and
| antenna. And folks in this discussion seem to forget the
| antenna, which is multiples of iPhone thickness.
|
| https://buy.garmin.com/en-US/US/p/592606#specs
| AdamJacobMuller wrote:
| It's chunky, but, it's older and made of plastic vs
| glass/metal and designed to be more resistant to
| drops/falls/damage. It's also a 6 year old design,
| technology has moved on.
|
| My larger point being that I don't find it implausible that
| it could be done, since, 6-year-old technology was already
| close.
| arbirk wrote:
| If the new phones can deliver near global coverage for
| SMS/iMesssage texts and findMy services then that is a huge
| selling point. Tapping into the rescue device market for
| hikers and backpackers is a huge business opportunity.
| kilroy123 wrote:
| I've been following this tech for a while and I assure you it's
| being worked on and looked at seriously.
|
| I absolutely think it will exist in the future. Likely for very
| low bandwidth text messaging or maybe a very low quality calls.
| Obviously, it will only work outside with line of site.
|
| I don't think it's ready for the next iPhone though. I would be
| very shocked and surprised if this capability was on the iPhone
| 13, not surprised if on the 14.
| sysadm1n wrote:
| LEO != Law Enforcement Officer
| whoisjohnkid wrote:
| good to see I wasn't the only one thinking along these lines
| from reading the title alone. thought it was another privacy
| issue coming to light.
| zamadatix wrote:
| Kuo has been probably the most accurate and consistent source for
| the Apple rumor mill but it's still just that for now: rumored to
| support.
| baybal2 wrote:
| Thurayya satellite system
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thuraya
|
| Theye recently got Android phones too
| https://www.amazon.co.uk/Thuraya-X5-Touch-Satellite-Phone/dp...
| exikyut wrote:
| https://phonedb.net/index.php?m=device&id=14233&c=thuraya_x5...
|
| Features:
|
| - Released end of 2018
|
| - 2GB RAM, 16GB storage
|
| - Android 7.1
|
| - $1,200
|
| - _C H O N K_ score: 2.46cm thick
| tim333 wrote:
| Thuraya isn't low earth orbit though.
| lxgr wrote:
| Skipping the Americas does not sound like a typical Apple move.
|
| My bet is on Iridium (or possibly Globalstar, although that
| would be a pretty un-Apple like compromise in quality too).
|
| Inmarsat is the only other option, but I think antenna
| size/directionality would exclude that as well.
| Gaelan wrote:
| > Skipping the Americas does not sound like a typical Apple
| move.
|
| I know of one place where Apple does this: in China, and only
| China, you can buy an iPhone with two physical SIM slots. You
| can do Dual SIM on iPhones elsewhere, but only with an eSIM.
| gambiting wrote:
| I know, it's incredibly annoying, I'd love a dual SIM
| iPhone but you simply can't buy one in the EU other than a
| grey import from China without warranty. And no, neither of
| my two operators support eSIM.
| baybal2 wrote:
| Iridium, and Globalstar are low earth orbit systems needing
| very different radio hardware.
|
| It may sound super counterintuitive, but providing a stable
| link to a geosynchronous satellite on a handheld hardware
| with tiny antenna is easier than with fast flying low earth
| orbit satellites.
|
| And I doubt't that voice communications, or even Internet
| service would be there, just SMS, or pager like functionality
| most likelly.
| lxgr wrote:
| Very different than what?
|
| Iridium modems are among the smallest satellite
| transceivers available, much smaller than GEO ones.
|
| Looking at something like the Garmin InReach shows what's
| possible with Iridium, and I imagine Apple would be
| throwing a lot more money at the technical/design
| constraints.
| detaro wrote:
| Transmitting short few-byte messages like the InReachs vs
| making phone calls as claimed here?
| lxgr wrote:
| Phone calls would be surprising, but in a way that seems
| vaguely plausible based on current technology.
|
| GSM phones used to have large external antennas too,
| until one day they simply didn't anymore.
| detaro wrote:
| addendum: does anyone know if those actually have
| different requirements? obviously calls are more data and
| thus need more energy, but from a quick search through
| public documentation I don't find a clear claim that the
| Short Burst Data service actually uses a less-demanding
| encoding.
| baybal2 wrote:
| > Very different than what?
|
| Than system communicating with geostationary sats.
|
| Training the circuitry onto one weak, but stable
| satellite signal is much easier than keeping readjusting,
| or communicting with multiple satellites at once.
|
| Just like with the GPS, the trick is the super duper
| accurate, and stable frequency reference.
| lxgr wrote:
| Iridium (which is LEO) uses omnidirectional antennas.
| baybal2 wrote:
| And it loses the signal frequently if you move
| anotheryou wrote:
| lol "It is also unclear if satellite features would be free, like
| GPS, or would come with associated usage charges."
| laserlight wrote:
| This is from Ming-Chi Kuo, a reliable source, so it's more likely
| to be true than not. I speculate that this is an obscure feature
| at first, just like how UWB supported a limited feature set when
| it was first introduced. I don't expect to see any associated
| services to be offered initially.
|
| Find My would be a good fit for a basic application: low
| bandwidth, low usage frequency, low service quality demand.
| Communicate locations of iPhones and other devices that support
| Find My, therefore making the whole network more capable by
| covering locations without any infrastructure.
| ed25519FUUU wrote:
| Even if you can use it to send text messages, that's a huge win
| and a giant selling point.
| sdze wrote:
| I'd rather prefer baby steps: USB-C.
| tim333 wrote:
| I wonder if it will be compatible with existing networks and
| which ones.
| drevil-v2 wrote:
| Hah a feature like this would make iPhone 13 persona non grata
| for many governments around the world.
| cced wrote:
| Why would this type of feature invoke that type of response?
| PeterisP wrote:
| No specific response is needed as a bunch of countries
| already have pre-existing rules that require prohibit
| importing satellite communications devices without special
| permits even (or perhaps especially for) personal use - it
| just doesn't get much attention as e.g. Iridium phones are
| not that common.
|
| But if these countries do nothing and change nothing, this
| feature means that it would be prohibited to bring iPhone 13s
| in the country without special permits.
| tomjen3 wrote:
| I am sure that Apple will fix this, probably by disabling
| this feature in India. That is one of the nice things about
| Apple, when you run into issues like this, things happen,
| precisely because they are so common.
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| It's worse than that - bringing one in just as a tourist
| could bring heavy consequences and there's no clear
| communication about that rule as it is.
| Gaelan wrote:
| Internet access that isn't subject to whatever domestic
| firewalling is in place, presumably.
| bellyfullofbac wrote:
| If you come to China with a foreign SIM card and use data
| roaming, there are no firewall restrictions there. At least
| that's what I know from a few years ago. One trick
| travellers had was to get a SIM card from Hong Kong (again,
| before the crackdowns) because the roaming prices inside
| China were good (I can't remember if it was non-existant)
| but the Internet was not censored...
| treeman79 wrote:
| Many governments have strict censorship. This bypasses all
| government controls.
| gambiting wrote:
| Well, not quite - even satellite internet has base stations
| _somewhere_ and your internet follows the rules of that
| country.
| DaiPlusPlus wrote:
| Satellites can bounce signals between each other while in
| orbit to work-around those pesky geopolitical borders.
|
| ...this was also part of the plot of Independence Day.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| Governments have no control over satellite signals.
| anchpop wrote:
| They can shoot down the satellites if they break the law
| though. That's why bypassing China's firewall isn't as easy
| as sneaking in a Starlink base station
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > They can shoot down the satellites if they break the
| law though.
|
| I don't think they can tractably do that. If India
| started shooting down US satellites they'd be in for a
| whole world of problems.
| kube-system wrote:
| No, but they do have control over people and property.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| They have absolutely no way to detect what those people
| are doing with that property when it comes to satellites
| though - they can't detect that you're doing it, and they
| don't have much practical way to block it either.
| [deleted]
| lxgr wrote:
| That feature is very likely going to be geofenced.
| ISL wrote:
| That only works until the first jailbreak.
| CodesInChaos wrote:
| Isn't the baseband a separate chip which would have to be
| cracked separately? A phone already needs to enforce many
| RF restrictions, one more doesn't sound like a big deal.
| lxgr wrote:
| The satellite network knows where you are too and can just
| choose to not service you if you are in a banned area.
| ugjka wrote:
| What kind of precision we talk about here and why would
| they give a damn? It would suck for sailors to get their
| satcom banned because they appear to be close to the
| Indian waters but not intending to enter
| lxgr wrote:
| The precision is probably on the order of the Iridium
| spot beam size, which as far as I know is 300 km.
|
| As to why: Indian customs officers confiscating all
| iPhones is probably bad for business (in the long term).
| ugjka wrote:
| Clueless travellers going to places like India and getting
| their Iphones confiscated sounds interesting
|
| Edit: to clarify India banned satcom devices
| samstave wrote:
| Why?
| op00to wrote:
| India has (had?) a monopoly on telecommunications. My
| company couldn't send voip phones to our Indian employees
| like we do for employees everywhere else.
| ugjka wrote:
| Following the Mumbai terror attacks in 2011, the
| Directorate General of Shipping (DGS)in India banned the
| use of "Thuraya, Iridium and other such satellite phones"
| in Indian waters.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Satcom is banned in India :
| https://apollosat.com/intel/satellite-phone-ban-warning-
| to-v...
| webmobdev wrote:
| Are you sure it is completely banned? I thought you just need
| permission (in the form of a "no objection certificate") from
| the Home Ministry in India before you can own and operate a
| satellite phone?
| ugjka wrote:
| No chance getting that on travel visa, but you're right
| [deleted]
| bserge wrote:
| Anything to avoid increasing battery life, I guess.
| dhuk_2018 wrote:
| https://ast-science.com/spacemobile/
| swlkr wrote:
| I would upgrade for this, I backpack a lot in out of service
| areas and I would love to use my phone instead of an inReach
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| Your inreach could likely survive being dropped or submerged or
| being left on for more than 10 hours better than your phone.
| Inreach mini if it's too big!
| justinzollars wrote:
| damn it. I just bought a Garmin inReach Mini
| lxgr wrote:
| I got a Somewear recently (really happy with it too) almost
| expecting this to finally land in this year's iPhones in a
| classic late early adopter's moment.
|
| At least you'll be able to resell it to Android users :)
| tra3 wrote:
| I've got the big one last year. It's still worth it -- while
| the usage overlaps a bit, you still want a ruggerized device
| that can survive knocks and submersion for emergencies.
|
| This is still a rumour after all.
| msh wrote:
| Is the Garmin more durable than a iPhone in a rugged case
| with screen protection?
| frosted-flakes wrote:
| Definitely. An iPhone is still a glass slab, after all.
| Drop it on a rock screen-down and the screen can still
| easily break. Plus, a dedicated device can have better
| battery life.
| GeekyBear wrote:
| The latest version of (iPhone exclusive) Corning glass is
| quite a bit more durable than the Gorilla glass used in
| other devices.
|
| >With the screen still holding strong, we decided to go
| even higher, using a step ladder to reach nine feet.
|
| ...the screen still looked like new after three back-to-
| back drops from nine feet
|
| https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/iphone-12-scratch-drop-
| test...
| mthoms wrote:
| The mini feels nearly indestructible. But more importantly,
| it's a single purpose device with a dedicated battery.
| mthoms wrote:
| Hold onto it. I use my iPhone for pictures and GPS tracking
| (with paper maps as backup) when hiking but don't trust the
| battery enough for emergency use.
|
| The mini can last for days, or even weeks between charges and
| is extremely rugged.
| dunnevens wrote:
| This is one of the more intriguing rumors. I'm not even remotely
| qualified to say if it's feasible or not. But, if it was, I'm
| curious about pricing. Would users need to contract with one of
| the existing satellite providers? Or would carriers start
| offering "Satellite Add-on" for $10/$20/$30 a month for X number
| of texts?
|
| And would there be free SOS emergency service? Seems like that
| would be a huge selling point to get people to upgrade. People
| who wouldn't otherwise want or need satellite communication.
| lxgr wrote:
| Comparable services charge about $10-20 for a plan with a
| handful of messages and 50 cent per message in excess of that,
| and $50 or so for a monthly flat rate.
|
| SOS is only possible with a monthly plan, but I'd guess that
| Apple might make that one free (it wouldn't make for good press
| to hear of the inevitable lost hiker holding a fully charged
| iPhone but no emergency calling plan).
| dunnevens wrote:
| I think SOS would almost have to be free on iPhones for the
| reason you stated. Besides, it would probably pay for itself
| because it would be such a great selling point. Could see a
| fair number of Android users switching for having emergency
| access available anywhere.
|
| And it would be great free advertising. I'm just imagining
| the first news story with a lost hiker rescued because of
| their iPhone. It would make a big impact.
| tomjen3 wrote:
| I am not so sure about the advertising. Apple is already
| doing that with people who get saved by the watch and those
| don't then to make huge splashy headlines.
| notatoad wrote:
| the watch doesn't give you connectivity anywhere your
| phone wouldn't. the people being rescued because they
| called from help from their watch are being rescued from
| areas with good cell coverage, they just didn't bring
| their phone with them.
|
| it's a different story if they're offering satellite
| connectivity.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| > Could see a fair number of Android users switching
|
| LOL. If Apple is getting this then Android will get this,
| if not sooner (think Google Fi), since this is built in the
| radio chip (something Apple still buys from 3rd party).
| smnrchrds wrote:
| > _SOS is only possible with a monthly plan_
|
| Is that allowed? In normal cell coverage areas, emergency
| calls are routed by law even without a SIM card.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| Since the only reason most people have a satphone is for
| emergencies, what would pay for the service if emergency
| calls were free?
| tim333 wrote:
| Having had a satphone it got used for quite a lot of
| stuff, never for an emergency.
| gambiting wrote:
| Yes, because satellite phones are not normal service. Both
| immersat and iridium connect 112 and 911 to their own
| operator who will then try to contact authorities where you
| tell them you are. I'm not surprised that this isn't
| available unless you're on a monthly plan.
| jsjohnst wrote:
| > Both immersat and iridium connect 112 and 911 to their
| own operator
|
| Not unless that's changed recently. The last time I tried
| with Iridium (when in an actual emergency) calling 911
| wasn't supported in any capacity. I had to call someone
| else and have them relay my call.
| gambiting wrote:
| Well, this article from 2014 says that all satellite
| providers support it through operator connection:
|
| https://gtc.co.uk/blog/2014/02/19/how-to-call-emergency-
| numb...
| jsjohnst wrote:
| > this article from 2014 says that _all_ satellite
| providers support it
|
| That link actually says only 2 of 4 supported 911/112 in
| 2014. It explicitly states:
|
| > You will need to obtain the full international access
| code, country code, and phone number for the local fire,
| police, or ambulance depending upon the nature of the
| emergency and store it in your contacts.
|
| for Thuraya and Globalstar (at least back then).
|
| Either way, I said Iridium didn't and apparently I was
| wrong (as my example was from 2016). Maybe I had a
| Globalstar phone that time? Iridium definitely didn't in
| 2008 though.
| lxgr wrote:
| Not sure, actually - I wouldn't be surprised if a
| helicopter would actually still appear if I'd press the big
| red button on mine, but I haven't tried.
|
| False alerts are probably a real concern. I had to provide
| two emergency contacts for the service I'm using. The
| operators will call them before dispatching emergency
| services to catch accidental activations.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| A big problem with stolen phones, is that the thieves are
| often kids, and use the 911 (999, in EU) feature to call
| in false emergency calls, as that is the only thing on a
| locked phone that works.
|
| Really, phones are a bad bet, for stealing, these days;
| especially Apple kit.
| littlecranky67 wrote:
| In EU, the universal emergency number is 112, not 999. I
| think the later was UK specific once, but in the UK 112
| will also work [0].
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/112_(emergency_telepho
| ne_numbe...
| kylebarron wrote:
| With something like a Garmin inReach, the service is turned
| completely off if you're not subscribed, so even an SOS
| message wouldn't be transmitted through the satellite
| Jcowell wrote:
| What's stopping Apple from just adding this as a feature on
| their highest Apple One Plan?
| mrfusion wrote:
| Have they made 5-10 breakthroughs in radio communications while
| we weren't paying attention?
| lxgr wrote:
| Somewhat affordable handheld satellite phones and messengers
| have been available for many years now!
| gambiting wrote:
| Yes but we've also been told for years that apple absolutely
| and categorically cannot include a headphone jack any more
| because they used the room for other things, but now suddenly
| there's room for a satellite radio and antenna?
| lxgr wrote:
| > we've also been told for years that apple absolutely and
| categorically cannot include a headphone jack
|
| Have we?
|
| I'm actually glad they are using the space for something
| I'd actually be using, and I doubt that I am the minority
| in this.
|
| > now suddenly there's room for a satellite radio and
| antenna?
|
| It wouldn't be a new baseband or probably even transceiver.
| Iridium is 1.5 GHz, which is probably covered by one of the
| existing power amplifiers, and the radio technology is
| pretty similar to GSM and probably integrated into the
| existing baseband.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| I mean its possible, but without some serious engineering I can't
| see it happening.
|
| First, leo needs a wedge of RF power. like 10-25watts. (less if
| you have satellites with a huge power budget)
|
| You have that near your head, that means some _serious_ active
| antenna design.
|
| Failing that some other engineering is going to be needed on the
| satellite end.
|
| I can't see the regulators allowing that much RF power near your
| head.
| tjohns wrote:
| Heck, I don't want that much power near my _hand_. Anything
| beyond ~5 watts you have to start worrying about RF burns if
| you happen to touch anything metallic.
| m0zg wrote:
| I'm sure it will communicate with law enforcement quite a bit,
| yes, if Apple's recent announcements are anything to go by.
| Though likely not through a satellite. /s
| dougmwne wrote:
| Interesting! I dug into this a bit and it seems this has been
| brewing in the 5G standard for the past few years and was
| specifically included in Release 17. Qualcomm seems to have been
| working closely with both Iridium and Globalstar. Iridium just
| finished launching it's Next constellation with 5G support to
| mobile phones one of the goals. Qualcomm had planned to include
| NTN (Non-Terrestrial-Networks) in the X65 5G modem with band n53
| support. The frequency bands are in the s-band, putting it in the
| 1-2 GHz range. It's possible Qualcomm will be capable of
| connecting to multiple satellite providers. I see no mention of
| bandwidth, so it's probably terrible.
|
| This doesn't seem to be Apple's tech specifically, but they could
| have some interesting things to add to the service bundling and
| what applications would actually benefit from this connection.
|
| It will be interesting to see how this plays out, but I am
| expecting something on the order of text-only iMessages for a low
| monthly fee.
| tim333 wrote:
| Maybe this will use something like Lynk communication's system
| https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/18/lynk-sends-the-first-text-...
|
| >Last year Lynk -- then called Ubiquitilink -- showed that, from
| now on, every phone can be a satellite phone. But they've spent
| the last year honing the product and have just demonstrated the
| real thing: Sending a plain old text message from a "cell tower
| in space" to a normal phone on the surface.
| mrfusion wrote:
| If nothing else it would be cool to be able to send an sos with
| coordinates from anywhere on earth. You'd think such a small
| message could conceivably get through to a satellite.
| jeffbee wrote:
| It's not a question of whether the satellite will hear you,
| it's a question of whether they will ignore you because you're
| not a subscriber.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-08-29 23:01 UTC)