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This raises BOM costs and has significant operating costs. How many users are likely to continue to pay for this service once the two years are up? It's a grea

This raises BOM costs and has significant operating costs. How many users are likely to continue to pay for this service once the two years are up? It's a great feature but it's far from a guaranteed money maker. This could just as likely disappear from future iPhone models. edit: also competing dedicated devices also include the cost of SAR insurance in their monthly fees, which are significant: https://www.garmin.com/en-US/p/837461/pn/010-06000-SU https://www.garmin.com/en-US/p/837461/pn/010-06000-SU It starts at $15 a month but any serious user is paying more like $35-65 a month.

SkyPuncher 4y ago
I live in a small city in what is rural America. There are a lot of places that I travel that I don't get cell service in. This could literally be a life-saver for me. While I don't know how large this group is, skiers, hikers, boaters, campers, off-roaders would all likely get use out of this functionality.
- guyzero 4y ago
  Most people in the groups you mention probably already own a dedicated emergency locator device. AAPL may very well take a lot of their business, but maybe not. An inReach is going to survive a much bigger fall than an iPhone.
  - chrisseaton 4y ago
    Who are AAPL?
    - Jtsummers 4y ago
      It's Apple's stock symbol. People sometimes refer to companies by their stock symbols (on this site and others), though usually more in a financial discussion context.
      - matt_attack 4y ago
        Gotta save that 1 character yet require hitting shift to cancel it out.
        dymk 4y ago
        JUST LEAVE CAPS LOCK ON ALL THE TIME, EASY
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - goleary 4y ago
      Apple
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
  - happyopossum 4y ago
    > Most people in the groups you mention probably already own a dedicated emergency locator device Hahahahahahaha! Not a chance. Maybe the over landing crowd, and hardcore hikers, but most casual enjoyers of the outdoors definitely do NOT have a Spot or InReach. Next time you’re on a ski hill, ask around - you’ll be shocked how few people have them.
  - acchow 4y ago
    iPhone has shown that people don't want dedicated devices. iPhone has replaced: watch, compass, digital camera, calculator, ebook reader, portable DVD player, flashlight, Garmin GPS, etc. etc. etc.
    - goleary 4y ago
      debatable...lots of people with iphones still use watches and ereaders. and for a life saving device like this i know a subset of people will not want it a part of their phone. ...but this will definitely take a LOT of business from garmin because i believe that subset to be pretty small.
      - frio 4y ago
        As someone who hikes (well, it's NZ, so, tramps) a fair bit, we'll continue taking our PLB with us (we opted for a 406MHz PLB rather than the Garmin solutions because we didn't want to find out in a life-threatening situation that our credit cards had expired a month ago and we couldn't call for help!). You're right, a dedicated device is pretty mandatory for true life threatening situations, and we always have a bevy of safety equipment on harder tramps. With that said, the iPhone (Pro?) is becoming somewhat of a swiss army knife for casual tramping: offline maps with GPS and a compass, an excellent set of cameras, an ereader, excellent battery life to back all that up _and_ it can now communicate with the rest of the world in non-life threatening -- but marginal -- situations. As an example, we leave intentions with people whenever we leave ("here is our route, if we're not back by midday on the third, contact SAR"); being able to message people and say "hey, I've rolled my ankle, we're safe but will be late because we're limping out, don't worry" is a pretty excellent feature. We're probably a niche market, but several friends in that community are pretty excited about this feature. For 2-3 day trips, this makes the outdoors much more accessible.
    - guyzero 4y ago
      Sure. Garmin is still $5B in sales annually. Which is peanuts next to the iPhone, so you wonder why they even bother going after it. AirPods are a bigger business than that.
  - LorenPechtel 4y ago
    The more serious of that crowd likely will, but not the more casual people. I'd say I see them hanging from a few percent of packs--but the deeper into the backcountry one goes the higher the percentage becomes.

SkyPuncher 4y ago

I live in a small city in what is rural America. There are a lot of places that I travel that I don't get cell service in. This could literally be a life-saver for me. While I don't know how large this group is, skiers, hikers, boaters, campers, off-roaders would all likely get use out of this functionality.

guyzero 4y ago
Most people in the groups you mention probably already own a dedicated emergency locator device. AAPL may very well take a lot of their business, but maybe not. An inReach is going to survive a much bigger fall than an iPhone.
- chrisseaton 4y ago
  Who are AAPL?
  - Jtsummers 4y ago
    It's Apple's stock symbol. People sometimes refer to companies by their stock symbols (on this site and others), though usually more in a financial discussion context.
    - matt_attack 4y ago
      Gotta save that 1 character yet require hitting shift to cancel it out.
      - dymk 4y ago
        JUST LEAVE CAPS LOCK ON ALL THE TIME, EASY
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - goleary 4y ago
    Apple
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
- happyopossum 4y ago
  > Most people in the groups you mention probably already own a dedicated emergency locator device Hahahahahahaha! Not a chance. Maybe the over landing crowd, and hardcore hikers, but most casual enjoyers of the outdoors definitely do NOT have a Spot or InReach. Next time you’re on a ski hill, ask around - you’ll be shocked how few people have them.
- acchow 4y ago
  iPhone has shown that people don't want dedicated devices. iPhone has replaced: watch, compass, digital camera, calculator, ebook reader, portable DVD player, flashlight, Garmin GPS, etc. etc. etc.
  - goleary 4y ago
    debatable...lots of people with iphones still use watches and ereaders. and for a life saving device like this i know a subset of people will not want it a part of their phone. ...but this will definitely take a LOT of business from garmin because i believe that subset to be pretty small.
    - frio 4y ago
      As someone who hikes (well, it's NZ, so, tramps) a fair bit, we'll continue taking our PLB with us (we opted for a 406MHz PLB rather than the Garmin solutions because we didn't want to find out in a life-threatening situation that our credit cards had expired a month ago and we couldn't call for help!). You're right, a dedicated device is pretty mandatory for true life threatening situations, and we always have a bevy of safety equipment on harder tramps. With that said, the iPhone (Pro?) is becoming somewhat of a swiss army knife for casual tramping: offline maps with GPS and a compass, an excellent set of cameras, an ereader, excellent battery life to back all that up _and_ it can now communicate with the rest of the world in non-life threatening -- but marginal -- situations. As an example, we leave intentions with people whenever we leave ("here is our route, if we're not back by midday on the third, contact SAR"); being able to message people and say "hey, I've rolled my ankle, we're safe but will be late because we're limping out, don't worry" is a pretty excellent feature. We're probably a niche market, but several friends in that community are pretty excited about this feature. For 2-3 day trips, this makes the outdoors much more accessible.
  - guyzero 4y ago
    Sure. Garmin is still $5B in sales annually. Which is peanuts next to the iPhone, so you wonder why they even bother going after it. AirPods are a bigger business than that.
- LorenPechtel 4y ago
  The more serious of that crowd likely will, but not the more casual people. I'd say I see them hanging from a few percent of packs--but the deeper into the backcountry one goes the higher the percentage becomes.