The emergency SOS services on iOS 18 are about to get a serious upgrade. 911 dispatchers will soon be able to video call you during an emergency. This was announced at WWDC but may have gone unnoticed among the plethora of new features coming to iOS 18. It is a much-needed development that made me wonder why it didn’t exist until now.
9to5Mac reports that 911 emergency dispatchers can request that you (the caller) share a live video or upload a recorded one from your camera roll. Of course, you will require a stable internet connection for this to work.
This feature is beneficial in clearly showing or explaining the emergency details to your operator. They can see exactly how serious an event is and how they can best walk you through a medical emergency or help identify where you are when help arrives.
CNET mentions that the two emergency platforms in the US that will facilitate the video calling feature are RapidOS and Prepared. The former has announced that the feature will be free of cost starting in the fall. They also claim this service will cover around 99% of the US population.
This isn’t the first time Apple has rolled out a user safety feature. The stolen device protection feature released earlier this year for iOS 17.3 was also a much-needed update that aimed to add a few layers of security so that someone who gets their hands on your phone can’t access your entire digital life.
