[HN Gopher] The iPhone 14 keeps calling 911 on rollercoasters
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The iPhone 14 keeps calling 911 on rollercoasters
Author : Tomte
Score : 36 points
Date : 2022-10-09 17:48 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theverge.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theverge.com)
| rolph wrote:
| isnt there a fairly stiff fine for annoying 911/making many
| spurious calls
| function_seven wrote:
| Only if you either make a lot of them, or if the few that you
| make are clearly malicious or intentional "pranks"
|
| Accidental calls are generally not penalized.
| kweingar wrote:
| I wonder if new Apple Watches have the same problem.
|
| The iPhone wouldn't be a problem for me, since I wouldn't take it
| on a rollercoaster anyway, but I'd probably forget to take my
| watch off before every ride.
| jesboat wrote:
| > An Apple Watch with Crash Detection can only notify
| authorities if you have your iPhone with you, or if it's
| connected to a mobile network or Wi-Fi.
|
| from TFA
| jmkni wrote:
| Off topic but something I find quite neat is that your watch
| syncs wifi networks with your phone.
|
| I was at a friends house the other day and had forgotten my
| phone, but was still getting texts/notifications come through
| on the watch because I had previously connected to the wifi
| network on my phone (which was sitting in my house).
|
| Clever.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| GP might have the cellular Apple Watch.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| My Apple Watch hates it when I'm splitting firewood. I have to
| take it off.
| MBCook wrote:
| I would think it was trained on the same data. Seems odd one
| device would trigger and not the other under similar
| stimulation.
| [deleted]
| kotaKat wrote:
| A friend and I are wagering on which would trigger first: Apple's
| Crash Detect, or Ford SYNC's 911 Assist feature. SYNC 911 Assist
| triggers the millisecond that the RCM (restraint control module)
| signals the airbag deployment and is "about 10 seconds". We THINK
| that the car might beat iOS itself to command a 911 call, but
| we're not sure.
| oppositelock wrote:
| These things are quite sensitive and their heuristics are
| sometimes wrong. I've been driving at the track for quite a few
| years, and now and then, you see a car deploy airbags for no
| good reason when cornering really hard or hitting a berm or
| cresting a hill. OnStar calling 911 is pretty common, because
| it decides to do that based on driving style, and on the track,
| it's pretty near the limit.
| MBCook wrote:
| From the test videos iOS waits 10s or so for some reason, and
| then starts a 10s countdown.
|
| So it sounds like Ford would win.
| NaughtyShiba wrote:
| It's probably easy (in terms scale of all that detection) to fix,
| and for what it's worth, this feature can definitely be a
| lifesaver.
| fasthands9 wrote:
| I am very curious if they did assessment of other situations
| which could trigger similar sensor reactions that they had to
| rule out. Theme parks could actually be geofenced off without
| not that much work - there are under 1000 roller coasters in
| the US.
|
| Did they have to consider people dropping phones out of car
| windows (or off a boat ?) What about ski crashes or skateboard
| crashes?
| NobodyNada wrote:
| There was an article a couple weeks ago about the feature
| triggering when someone's iPhone fell off his motorcycle:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32968229
| mdaniel wrote:
| > Theme parks could actually be geofenced off without not
| that much work - there are under 1000 roller coasters in the
| US.
|
| I'm cognizant of the 80/20 rule, and "perfect is the enemy of
| good," but if a run-of-the-mill coaster is setting off that
| detection, then I'd wager the traveling fair rides will be
| even more violent, based on my experiences growing up
|
| I have no idea where this falls on the privacy spectrum, but
| I'd guess if there are 5 or 10 triggering events within some
| timespan and some geo boundary, that's an indicator of a
| themepark-ish setup
|
| Clicking "report false positive" on the phone would also
| likely go a long way
| NaughtyShiba wrote:
| Hard to answer. However it's also probably hard to come up
| with all the edge cases.
| postalrat wrote:
| It could also be a life-taker when it calls 911 and takes
| resources that could have been used for saving a life.
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