The following happened to my SO, and I wonder how prevalent the underlying misconception is:
The iPhone lock screen is headed “Enter passcode”, and below the 10-key screen keypad for entering the passcode there are touch fields for “Emergency” and “Cancel” (apparently, “Emergency” and “Clear” for other iOS versions).
When my SO wanted to call emergency from her iPhone for the first and up to now only time, when someone she accompanied had a possible medical emergency on a sidewalk, she pressed the ‘Emergency’ field, expecting the phone to dial the emergency number. The phone did not dial emergency, of course, and she obtained the help of a passerby to phone emergency (it turned out, fortunately, that the case was not serious.)
**True functionality of the ‘Emergency’ field: to be able to dial an emergency number (using a dial keypad that appears when you press ‘Emergency’) without having to enter the phone’s unlock code
Misconception: pressing ‘Emergency’ directly calls the emergency number.**
Of course once you think about it, when not in a stressful situation, it is clear that the phone cannot work as per the misconception - for one thing the emergency numbers are different in different parts of the world, for another people would inadvertently dial emergency all the time.
Has anyone of you encountered the misconception I stated above, in yourself or someone else?
I work in a 9-1-1 center. People DO call by accident all the time. Quite often they activate the Emergency feature from the lock screen to do so. Confused people. Babies. Rattling around in someone’s purse. Butt dialed in someone’s pocket when they sit down. Happens all the time, every day. Dozens of times daily in our center alone. Millions of times annually across all emergency call centers. And at least from some phones hitting Emergency and OK will dial the programmed emergency number - no keypad entry of the number required.
Emergency numbers are most often 9-1-1, 1-1-2, or 9-9-9. In our jurisdiction the phone system is programmed to transfer calls to any of those numbers to our office. A few other numbers have worked in the past too.
The old number for ambulance emergency locally was 5-5-5. It hadn’t been the advertised number for more than a decade when the phone company started entering that as the sending number for their promotional texts. (i.e. Top up more than $10 today for double credit! Sender:555) People would try calling 555 to ask about the promotion or complain about receiving spam texts. And the phone system was still programmed to deliver the call to the 9-1-1 center. :smack: We finally got the phone company to stop delivering those calls to us.
So are you saying that once you press the emergency button, it brings up a screen that lets you dial any number of your choice?
So, if I find a lost phone on a New York City street and my emergency is that I need to practice my Arabic language skills, I can press the emergency button on a stranger’s phone and dial a number in Qatar?
I always assumed that one of the purposes of locking your phone was so that unauthorized persons couldn’t run up huge bills with your phone. Is there no filter as to what constitutes an emergency number? I know that emergency numbers are different in different parts of the world, but is there no place in the phone’s settings that lets you enter a list of allowable emergency numbers?
I assume the mobile carrier’s system will tell the phone ‘this is not an emergency number’. Acceptin calls to emergency numbers without requiring the PIN of the phone’s SIM is a functionality that was present from the beginning in GSM systems if I rightly recollect.
On Android phones the equivalent function (ICE for In Case of Emergency) lets you call 911 or one of a limited set of emergency contacts that the owner previously entered.
ETA: For any other number you have to enter the passcode.
I thought this was the case until a few months ago when I read an article suggesting that everyone should fill out the Medical ID information in the Health app because it could be accessed through the emergency screen.
One thing that WILL call 911, though, is Hey Siri.