Apple (AAPL) Intelligence might have stolen the show at the company’s Worldwide Developers Conference this week, but another announcement during the show could literally help you stay in touch with friends and family while off the grid or camping when you don’t have cell service.
Messages via satellite is a new feature for the iPhone 14 and iPhone 15 coming in iOS 18 that will allow you to send iMessages, you guessed it, via satellite. Apple already offers its Emergency SOS via satellite service, but that’s more geared to serious situations like when a user is lost in the wilderness or in some other kind of danger. Emergency SOS via satellite requires users to answer brief prompts about their particular situation, which Apple can then route to the appropriate authorities.
Unlike Emergency SOS via satellite, Messages via satellite allows you to send standard iMessages to friends and family who use iPhones, as well as SMS messages to Android users.
I joined Apple’s senior director of platform product marketing for iOS, iPadOS, and macOS, Kurt Knight, for a brief demo of the new feature and its capabilities.
Standing outside in the sweltering California heat, Knight showed me how the process of sending texts via satellite works using an iPhone without either a cellular or Wi-Fi connection.
From your phone’s lock screen, you’ll get a notification saying that you can send and check for messages via satellite when your iPhone detects you don’t have a cellular or Wi-Fi signal.
Read more here from Yahoo! News.
