Only a few months ago Qualcomm announced their own version of Apple's Emergency SOS via Satellite feature, dubbed Snapdragon Satellite, with Iridium as a partner. Today they've killed off this feature as "Qualcomm couldn't get a single Android manufacturer to add satellite messaging to a phone", with Qualcomm telling CNBC that smartphone makers "indicated a preference towards standards-based solutions" for satellite-to-phone connectivity. That's a real shame, I think this satellite emergency/last resort capability is a real game changer and it sucks that right now only iOS users have it - at least until Optus and Telstra get their deals with SpaceX and OneWeb's low earth orbit networks up and running.
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