We’ve heard stories about iPhones identifying heart defects. However, AppleInsider picked up on another way an iPhone has saved a life – the device blocked an arrow shot at it’s user! Police in New South Wales, Australia, were called by a man reporting someone wielding a bow and arrow. When the victim went to take a picture of the assailant, they fired an arrow, which was absorbed by the iPhone.
The arrow struck the iPhone, with the arrowhead partially passing through the device but ultimately embedding the ammunition… This is not the first time a person has escaped major harm thanks to the company’s hardware. In 2017, a witness to a shooting at a Fort Lauderdale airport revealed a MacBook Pro in his backpack was hit by a stray bullet, one that could have caused serious injury.
Check It Out: iPhone Saves Man Shot by Arrow
All jokes like this one aside – smartphones can and do save thousands of lives daily. Too bad Apple & USA doesn’t get in on what Google can do in the EU – the AML Advanced Mobile Location thing the EU is rolling out; 99% Android devices can run it – Phone recognizes emergency- auto messages emergency services thru GNSS, SMS and Wi Fi to locations 4000 times more accurately than current mobile services. (in UK? sic) The User doesn’t have to do anything – it’s not an app – it’s embedded. All a system needs is SMS or HTTPS end point.
“Google saw an opportunity to help solve one of the biggest problems of emergency services and they took it. As a result, around 1 billion phones world-wide are AML-enabled. In the UK alone, emergency services receive approximately 12,000 AML locations per day.”
As I sit here Skyping my buddies here from Hollywood to the East Coast on my huge LED screen – it IS kind of weird I see that “Skype can not make emergency calls” notice all the time…I think ALL devices hooked up online should have a one button emergency icon. 📺
Agreed on the one button icon. Though I joke at the idea of being saved after being shot by an arrow (thank goodness it wasn’t something launched by a trebuchet), I can thank having a cell phone in my hand when I hit the living room floor five years ago. Without it and 911, that’s where I would have shuffled off the mortal coil.
Need to come up with a chest harness to wear an iPhone over my heart, something like a Tony Stark arrangement. During WWII, airborne troops would sit on their helmet for flak protection, guess it’s the iPhone these days (and maybe it’ll shrink the swelling of hemmorhoids at the same time ; /