Chazmo
Well-Known Member
- Region
- USA
- City
- Central Massachusetts
Hi Gang!
I recently contacted one of the ride mapping software vendors about integrating some sort of emergency button in their app. I’m basically talking about the need to contact emergency services in the event of a serious bike accident.
The upshot of that conversation is that pretty much everything you need is already extant on the iPhone’s software. I think it’s unlikely that the software vendor will add anything, although they told me they’d consider it. Anyway, I just thought I’d review my findings with you:
1) To make an emergency call, you hold down the two buttons (on my iPhone) that you use to initiate a shutdown of the phone. If you do that, I think all iPhones will now prompt you whether you want to make an “SOS” phone call. I suspect that dialing 911 would do the trick here in the states as well, but this is a valuable feature to bypass that.
2) Now, suppose you don’t know exactly where you are. You can get address and/or GPS coordinates if you go into Apple Maps. I mean, I never use Apple Maps (I’m a Waze user), but Maps gives you all the details if you touch the location on the map screen and then scroll down to “Details."
3) There’s also a feature to allow tracking (which could be used for emergency situations) provided by RideWithGPS. This is something I would/will not use, but here are the details if anyone is interested (and a RideWithGPS premium user): "While Ride with GPS does not currently have a direct emergency alert or 911-call activation feature, your Premium subscription does provide access to Live Logging. This feature can be used to share your real-time location with family and friends through a secure link, so they can track your location during your ride, which can be beneficial in case of an emergency.” Again, FYI.
I recently contacted one of the ride mapping software vendors about integrating some sort of emergency button in their app. I’m basically talking about the need to contact emergency services in the event of a serious bike accident.
The upshot of that conversation is that pretty much everything you need is already extant on the iPhone’s software. I think it’s unlikely that the software vendor will add anything, although they told me they’d consider it. Anyway, I just thought I’d review my findings with you:
1) To make an emergency call, you hold down the two buttons (on my iPhone) that you use to initiate a shutdown of the phone. If you do that, I think all iPhones will now prompt you whether you want to make an “SOS” phone call. I suspect that dialing 911 would do the trick here in the states as well, but this is a valuable feature to bypass that.
2) Now, suppose you don’t know exactly where you are. You can get address and/or GPS coordinates if you go into Apple Maps. I mean, I never use Apple Maps (I’m a Waze user), but Maps gives you all the details if you touch the location on the map screen and then scroll down to “Details."
3) There’s also a feature to allow tracking (which could be used for emergency situations) provided by RideWithGPS. This is something I would/will not use, but here are the details if anyone is interested (and a RideWithGPS premium user): "While Ride with GPS does not currently have a direct emergency alert or 911-call activation feature, your Premium subscription does provide access to Live Logging. This feature can be used to share your real-time location with family and friends through a secure link, so they can track your location during your ride, which can be beneficial in case of an emergency.” Again, FYI.
