When emergencies happen, reaching for your cellphone and dialing 911 isn’t always practical. Especially once you consider the fact that pulling out an expensive iPhone in the middle of a robbery might actually make you even more of a target.
It’s a clear issue when it comes to personal safety.
Luckily, though, the smart people at Apple have already planned for a situation like this. In a recent video, tech reporter Jamey Tucker shows us that it’s possible to activate the emergency SOS feature on your phone just by pressing a few buttons.
You don’t even have to remove the iPhone from your pocket.
The police will be called within seconds, as well as all of your other emergency contacts.
“Most people don’t know that you can call 911 from an iPhone without touching the screen,” explains Tucker.
If you are in a situation where you feel threatened but aren’t able to take out your phone to contact authorities, the feature is extremely useful.
All you have to do is press the on/off button on the right side of the iPhone five times in a row in quick succession.
The button is located on the top right side of the phone. Although, we don’t recommend actually trying it unless it is a real emergency.
In the video, we can see what happens next after the SOS is triggered.
Once the power button is pressed five times rapidly, the phone immediately sounds a loud security alarm. This blaring noise has the benefit of potentially startling a would-be attacker, causing them to flee from the scene. Most importantly though, the Emergency SOS calls the police.
You will see a timer start counting down from three to one.
When the counter hits zero, the emergency call will be placed. This gives you a few seconds to cancel the call in case you accidentally triggered the feature by accident.
In some older model iPhones, you will still have to drag a slider on the screen to make the SOS go through.
However, with newer models, it will place your emergency distress call automatically as long as the feature is enabled. The feature was first introduced on iOS 10.2 in December of 2016.
You want to go into your settings, scroll down to Emergency SOS, and make sure that you enable Auto Call. It will automatically dial the police station closest to you based on your phone’s GPS location, so it’s important to have location services turned on as well.
In addition, the iPhone will send a text message to everyone you have listed as an emergency contact.
It will let them know your current location, as well as alert them to the fact that you have dialed 911. Whether it’s your mom, dad, child, or best friend, if you have not designated anyone in your contacts list as an emergency contact yet, it is crucial to do so.
While it’s unlikely that you will ever have to use the feature, it’s much better to be safe than sorry!
In the Emergency SOS settings of the phone, you will see a place where you can click “set up emergency contacts”. Follow the prompts on the screen from there.
Parents will also want to make sure their kids get their Emergency SOS feature up and running as well. Families should coordinate to make sure all of the proper emergency contacts are listed correctly on each person’s individual iPhone.
In the case of an emergency, the Emergency SOS feature on the iPhone might just save your life!
Check out the full video below for more instructions on how to use the Emergency SOS feature.
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