Android one-ups Apple’s satellite SOS with general-purpose satellite SMS

I’ve read lots of, shall we say, shallow reporting on this topic so far. Among other problems: Comparing Apple’s SOS and Find My satellite service available today, to a possible future Android service of unspecified form, while assuming Apple’s service doesn’t evolve. Apple invested $450 million in Globalstar for far, far more than free SOS service in a few regions. And that included launching more satellites, which solves only a few problems.

Still, I’m mostly glad that smartphone satellite messaging could be more widespread.

I doubt you’ll soon be sending friends a high-res filtered foto or viddy from the backcountry. Text-only is pushing today’s technology pretty far.

“Just point your phone at that moving satellite for 10 minutes – oops, it dropped below the horizon, start over.”

— Rex