Enjoying a roller-coaster thrill ride? If you have an iPhone 14 or the latest Apple Watch, your devices might think you’re in danger.
Last month, Apple launched the iPhone 14 and a new line of Apple Watches. The models feature Crash Detection, which can recognize when you’ve been in a serious car crash and alert emergency authorities and any important contacts.
But as a Wall Street Journal report uncovered, the feature doesn’t always work as intended.
In one example, a woman was carrying an iPhone 14 Pro while riding a roller coaster at an amusement park in Cincinnati, the report said. When she checked her phone after the ride, she noticed several missed calls and voice messages from an emergency dispatcher.
The woman learned that while she was on the roller coaster the phone’s Crash Detection feature triggered and automatically called 911, the report said.
Apple could not be immediately reached for comment. In a statement to The Wall Street Journal, the company said that the feature offers peace of mind and that developers would keep improving it over time.
This is not the first time a health feature created by Apple has delivered unintended consequences. A 2020 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association found features on the Apple Watch used to measure heart rate and atrial fibrillation in wearers were falsely sending people to emergency rooms.
The study found that of 264 people who visited ERs after alerts from their Apple Watch, only 30 received a “clinically actionable cardiovascular diagnosis of interest” after visiting a doctor.
Source: Brett Mollina on US Today
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