Most of that money will go to Globalstar, Apple said, a Louisiana-based company that manages the satellites that make the operation possible. Apple doesn’t take an equity stake in the company, but commits to spending money on the service’s equipment and features. The funds will pay for satellites, as well as equipping ground stations with a new type of antenna designed by Apple. In September, Apple announced Emergency SOS with Satellite as a banner feature on the new iPhone 14 models. If users are out of range of a cell tower, such as in a remote area while camping, they can connect to emergency services by pointing their phone in the sky and connecting to one of 24 Globalstar satellites in low Earth orbit. It will be released later this month via an iPhone software update. Thursday’s announcement highlights the significant cost of running the service. The feature is free for two years, but Apple has left open the possibility of charging for it after that. The service is not fully automated and requires human-staffed call centers — more than 300 Globalstar employees will work on the service, Apple said. It’s also an example of Apple highlighting how much it spends on US suppliers. Apple likes to point out that many of the components it uses in its devices come from the US, even though final assembly is done almost entirely in China. Apple’s payment to Globalstar will come from Apple’s Advanced Manufacturing Fund, a pool of money the company uses to support US-based suppliers. Since the Advanced Manufacturing Fund was created in 2017, it has paid $450 million to Corning to make iPhone glass, $390 million to Finisar to equip a factory to make laser components needed for FaceID, $100 million to XPO Logistics and $10 million to Copan Diagnostics for Spare Covid-19 Test Kits.
