Apple is planning to bring crash detection for the iPhone and Apple Watch next year, allowing the devices to call emergency services if an accident is detected. This will work when the phone is mounted in a holder and even when it’s in your pocket.
It would use the accelerometer on the devices and measure if there are any sudden spikes in acceleration. For example, if you’re going 60km/h down the highway and your speed suddenly drops to 0km/h, that’s probably not a good sign and your phone would call emergency services to get help.
This is not the first safety function built into Apple’s devices. A few years ago, they implemented ‘fall detection’ into the Apple Watch which alerts an emergency contact or calls emergency services if you have taken a hard fall. It has proven to be useful, as it recently saved a motorcyclist in Singapore after a hit-and-run.
Fall detection is not always accurate though. Personally, my Apple Watch once detected a hard fall when I was just slapping my knee really hard during a good laughing session. Still though, it saves lives so it’s a great feature to have.
Apple has actually been testing the crash detection feature in the past year with anonymous iPhone and Apple Watch data. The documents show that Apple has detected more than 10 million potential vehicle impacts, with 50,000 of them leading to a call to 911. For those concerned about how Apple gets this information, you can review what data they can see in the Privacy page of the Settings app.
Of course, crash detection is not a new idea. General Motor’s OnStar has had the feature since 1996, and Google implemented the feature on the Pixel phone in 2019.
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