Apple has now published a lot more information about how this works on the new phones, as the service has just now gone live:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT213426Ars Technica has also posted more at:
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/11 ... nd-canada/It's an interesting read. A remarkably good service for those of us who use Apple's services. It covers location sharing, medical information, altitude, battery time remaining, and effectively automatically CC'ing emergency messages to your configured emergency contacts (in addition to sending to emergency services). It automatically responds to specific queries from emergency services and allows manual responses to other queries. I guess they must have organised some arrangement with the emergency services in USA to make this work and will need to do the same thing here before it will be available in Oz.
Looks like a very useful service for those of us who bushwalk to remote locations (or at least it will be if/when it becomes available in Australia). The first two years are free when you activate a new iPhone (and I guess for each new iPhone you get another two years? But this is not clear.) It doesn't say what the cost is after those first two years.
The feature also includes a test function, and a UI that will (when necessary) direct the user which direction to point the phone in to get the best connectivity to the satellite.
I would not use it to replace a PLB just yet, but so long as you have a ruggedised case and a spare and reliable (and dedicated?) emergency battery pack, it could perhaps replace the PLB.