Apple began selling the new iPhone 14 a few weeks ago, and as with every generation, this one is just a little better than the one that preceded it. One of those little improvements is a new car crash detection feature, which uses machine learning to identify the hallmarks of a crash using the device’s integrated sensors. When a crash is detected, it will automatically call emergency services. However, it seems like Apple still has some work to do here. If you take your iPhone 14 on a roller coaster, it might think you’ve been in a crash and start dialing 911.
When the iPhone 14 believes the owner has been in an accident, it places a 911 call with a mechanical voice reading off GPS coordinates so dispatchers can locate the crash site. The Wall Street Journal reports that emergency services near Kings Island amusement park in Ohio have gotten no less than six automated calls from iPhones that were taken on roller coasters. The phones apparently mistook the looping, jerky movement of the ride for a car crash.
One iPhone owner and roller coaster rider who experienced this tells WSJ that she disembarked from the Mystic Timbers roller coaster to find multiple missed calls and voicemails from emergency services asking if she was okay. In the 911 recording (below), you can hear background noise from the park, including music and screaming (the excited roller coaster kind). This feature doesn’t trigger instantly when it detects a crash — the user has 10 seconds to dismiss the alert, but no one is going to be able to do that while on a roller coaster.
Since the iPhone 14 went on sale, the 911 dispatch center near Kings Island amusement park has received at least six phones calls saying:
“The owner of this iPhone was in a severe car crash…”
Except, the owner was just on a roller coaster.
🆕 by me: https://t.co/hp1fHZBIf6 pic.twitter.com/i0lZPoWzGz
— Joanna Stern (@JoannaStern) October 9, 2022
Apple has responded to the occurrences, noting that it utilized over a million hours of crash data, real-world testing, and crash lab analysis to train the feature. It believes that crash detection on the iPhone 14 (as well as the latest Apple Watch Series 8) is “extremely accurate.” That’s clearly debatable at this point, but Apple says it will improve the feature as time goes on. Hopefully, it gets on that — as more people upgrade to the new model, these 911 calls are only going to become more common.
Apple is not the only smartphone manufacturer to devise such a feature. Google added crash detection to Pixel phones in 2018, and we haven’t heard about any ride-based false positives. In fact, there have been a few reports of Pixels activating at the right time to get people help. Apple could probably learn a thing or two from Google. If nothing else, this is good marketing fodder for amusement parks, which can claim rides so scary your iPhone will call 911 for you.
Now read:
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