Apple Decodes iPhone's Crash Detection As It Mistakes Rollercoaster Ride's Twists And Turns For Real Emergency

Apple Inc.’s AAPL iPhone 14 Pro’s crash detection feature — that is supposed to automatically notify emergency responders if the user is involved in a car collision — was recently activated on rollercoasters.

What Happened: A few days ago, two Apple executives — Ron Huang, vice president of Sensing & Connectivity, and Kaiann Drance, vice president of Worldwide iPhone Product Marketing — explained how the crash detection feature works.

They said the feature mostly has to do with a new Gyroscope and Accelerometer and can detect G Force of up to 256Gs, reported TechCrunch. 

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The new gyroscope is designed to sense speed changes more expeditiously than the older versions.

Why It's Important: The executives said that the feature needs to make use of a combination of sensors to be activated — there is GPS to determine the user's high travel speeds, a microphone to monitor crash sounds, and a barometer to detect the pressure when airbags are deployed. 

"There's no silver bullet in terms of activating crash detection," Huang said, adding "It’s hard to say how many of these things have to trigger.”

What signals need to be observed later also depends on “how fast the traveling speed was earlier.”

Huang said it’s a “dynamic algorithm “ that takes into account the speed change, impact force, pressure change, sound level, and more. 

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