Qualcomm seeks to beat Apple's Emergency SOS via satellite feature with Snapdragon Satellite

[iMore.com]

Qualcomm has announced Snapdragon Satellite, a new feature to enable satellite messaging for Android phones. Full story from the iMore Blog...

 

[Up_And_Away]

“ It's great to see Android playing catchup and announcing even more features to make Apple compete as well here.”

Agreed. This could push Apple to offer more. Right now it’s an Apple exclusive feature. That makes for a lessened impetus to add more to the feature.
With that said, I hate to kill the party — this announcement only says the SOC will be capable but the feature will be up to the smartphone OEMs. First, Apple is in a position to offer it free for two years because Apple is the majority breadwinner in the smartphone industry. Otoh it’s a tough pill to swallow for razor thin margin smartphone makers. They’ll have to charge for it almost out of the gate. Secondly, android OEMs mostly provide meager new OS support. I suspect the satellite feature Year over Year will rely heavier on updates. Obviously this is not a problem for Apple and not so much for Samsung