The update, currently available to download via Settings > General > Software Update, promises “optimisations” for Crash Detection on iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Pro. Elsewhere, Apple says there’s some improved compatibility with wireless carriers and a number of security updates. Apple is promising yet-to-be-published information within support pages on the latter. Apple doesn’t really elaborate on what those Crash Detection optimisations are. We’ve contacted the iPhone-maker seeking clarity, but it could be a tweak designed to prevent the false positives we’ve seen reported since the feature launched. Some iPhone 14 owners reported the Emergency SOS feature, which is designed to actually contact the emergency services if it thinks you’ve been in a crash, activated when they were on rollercoasters, for instance. After the feature launched, Apple said there was “no silver bullet” in terms of what activated the feature, which uses the iPhone’s motion sensors as well as other factors like car engine sounds, Bluetooth connectivity, and whether you’re hooked up to CarPlay. “There’s no silver bullet, in terms of activating crash detection,” Apple’s VP of sensing & connectivity, Ron Huang told TechCrunch in October. “It’s hard to say how many of these things have to trigger, because it’s not a straight equation. Depending how fast the traveling speed was earlier, determines what signals we have to see later on, as well. Your speed change, combined with the impact force, combined with the pressure change, combined with the sound level, it’s all a pretty dynamic algorithm.”
