While rumors of satellite communication functionality for the iPhone have surfaced, the current word of mouth has it that the Apple Watch could receive this function as well.
The feature could allow an Apple Watch user to call for help in emergencies, even when outside regular cellular coverage.
According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, the feature could come to a 2022 or 2023 iPhone and Apple Watch.
“Whether it’s on the iPhone or Apple Watch,” wrote Gurman in his “Power On” newsletter, “the technology would provide an alternative to the Garmin inReach Explorer and SPOT, handheld satellite communicators with similar features.”
Both the SPOT and Garmin satellite devices are small handheld devices, but the technology would have to be considerably further reduced in size to fit the Apple Watch. The existing devices also require short and stubby, but prominent aerials.
Gurman also noted that Apple and its apparent satellite partner, Globalstar Inc., might be getting closer to launching the feature. As of February, Globalstar stated that it reached an agreement to buy 17 new satellites to help power “‘continuous satellite services’ for a ‘potential — and unnamed — customer that had paid it hundreds of millions of dollars.”
Stay tuned for additional details as they become available.
Via AppleInsider