The Wall Street Journal's Joanna Stern recently traveled to Michigan to test Apple's new crash detection feature on the iPhone 14 and Apple Watch Ultr

Apple Responds to Video Testing Crash Detection Feature With Junkyard Vehicles

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2022-10-01 07:30:13

The Wall Street Journal's Joanna Stern recently traveled to Michigan to test Apple's new crash detection feature on the iPhone 14 and Apple Watch Ultra. In response, Apple provided some additional information about how the feature works.

Stern recruited Michael Barabe to crash his demolition derby car with a heavy-duty steel frame into two unoccupied vehicles parked in a junkyard — a 2003 Ford Taurus and a 2008 Dodge Caravan. The results were mixed, with the iPhone and Apple Watch only detecting some of the crashes, which Apple said was the result of the testing conditions in the junkyard failing to provide enough "signals" to trigger the feature every time.

When I contacted Apple with the results, a company spokesman said that the testing conditions in the junkyard didn't provide enough signals to the iPhone to trigger the feature in the stopped cars. It wasn't connected to Bluetooth or CarPlay, which would have indicated the car was in use, and the vehicles might not have traveled enough distance prior to the crash to indicate driving. Had the iPhone received those extra indicators—and had its GPS shown the cars were on a real road—the likelihood of an alert would have been greater, he said.

Apple says its crash detection feature relies on "advanced Apple-designed motion algorithms trained with over a million hours of real-world driving and crash record data." Stern outlined the various hardware sensors and software algorithms that assist with detecting a crash on supported iPhone and Apple Watch models:

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