[Retric]

I agree it wasn’t going to happen, but I understand their confusion. Current satellite phones are the size of regular cellphones. That’s the equivalent of very low bandwidth internet access, but even low bandwidth access can still be really useful. https://www.g-comm.us/iridium-9555-satellite-phone.html

Dropping that to something that fits in an iPhone would be a very significant improvement, but it hardly breaks the laws of physics. Thus https://xkcd.com/2501/

[GeekyBear]

Devices that can send an emergency beacon to LEO are tiny.

https://www.iridium.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/mini3.jpg

Here it is with the case removed so you can see how big the helical antenna is.

https://fccid.io/img.php?id=1547768&img=bg1.png

Apple dumped a bunch of R&D money on a group of antenna experts years ago, so we'll see if they came up with a flat alternative to a helical antenna for satellite communications in the same way that the terrestrial cell phone networks did.

[vmception]

Apple has streamlined very significant improvements before

(and nobody cares if an obscure android device had it five years beforehand, Apple has wowed and brought many things into commonplace)

I would agree that there would typically be something obvious in the supply chain or a proof of concept before the iphone randomly has a significant improvement though

[mikestew]

I think it slightly disingenuous to just pretend that big honkin’ antenna isn’t there and then say “it’s the size of regular cellphones”. My Motorola Startac from 25-30 years ago didn’t have an antenna that big.

[Retric]

It’s 143mm x 55mm, the iPhone pro is 146.7 mm x 71.5 mm and the iPhone pro MAX is 160mm x 78 mm. Granted it’s also thicker and slightly heavier, but calling it cellphone sized is reasonable IMO.

[simonh]

That’s with the antenna collapsed. Extending it looks like it adds another 10cm or so.

[simonh]

The antennas on those things are monstrous compared to anything on a mainstream smartphone. The image in the link is of it collapsed, this is what it looks like extended. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Iridium-Satellite-Prepaid-Airtime-I...

That’s dictated by basic physics and it’s not going in an iPhone effectively ever. Iridium satellites are in geo orbit though. You might be able to make a useful connection to something in LEO with a more compact antenna, but the satellites would have to be designed to support that. Current star link satellites have antennas designed to work with current star link base station antennas, not phone scale antennas. That could change though.