Apple to Add Satellite Features to IPhones for Emergencies

You can also listen to our radio show at two pm Eastern Time on the Bloomberg Radio or watch us on YouTube search Bloomberg Global News. Uh. Do you want to talk a little bit about Apple? We talked about it yesterday, hitting or going beyond the two and a half trillion dollar market cap range. At rallied about three percent yesterday. It's down a little bit, just pulling back about half a percent. And Uh. On the Bloomber Journal, you might have noticed a Bloomberg exclusive about Apple adding

satellite features to iPhones for emergencies. We talked about that yesterday as well. Getting to that story, Bloomberg News technology reporter Mark German covers Apple for us with us now on the phone in l A. So, Mark, what's up with this? Thanks for having me. I mean, the end of August also means that we're getting pretty close to the lung to the next iPhones and lawn to the

next Apple products. And what I was discussing yesterday is a slate of new features for emergencies and crisis and s OS calls that Apple is planning to add to the iPhone next year. These features would allow you if you're in eight plane crash, god forbid, or a boating accident, or a car crash or a wildfire in areas without selling other connectivity, you'd be able to reach out to

emergency services over satellite infrastructure. UH. This would also allow you to text emergency contexts as well as emergency services over the satellite network through the messages app. And this is a bit less involved. It's not as big of a deal, I would say, as some of the dreams people had about the iPhone turning to, you know, a sat phone like you've seen in the classic Michael Douglas movie. This is Uh, this is more about emergencies I was

thinking about. And I have to say in the newsroom, we well, like, wait a minute, you're talking about like those big phones used by the military that we always see up on the big screen, or the mobile phones we saw the movie Wall Street. You know, coming back to we're not talking about that. We're not talking about that. We're talking about if you're in a plane crash or

you fall off a mountain. Basically, there's this device called the garment in reach and a lot of times people who do extreme sports or hikers and such, they buy this device because if something God forbid happens to them, this is how they save their lives. You can reach emergency services via text or call through this device that connect to Global Star satellite network. This is what Apple

wants to integrate into the phone. Obviously, there are a lot there's a lot at stake when you integrate this tech into a phone, meaning Apple can't really turn this into a satphone. They can't afford to basically kill the carriers right now the technology in order to make a true statphone, like you said in the movie Wall Street. In the military, there's a reason the phones are ethic. They require special intent as a special infrastructure that is just not feasible to fit into an iPhone. At this

point that the battery life necessary. Something with that type of functionality is likely five to ten years away, but at this point we're talking about emergencies, and of course it's it's a very handy feature and it will make the iPhone more useful to additional sets of people. First of all, what you said something, Uh, Apple can't afford

to kill the carriers at this point. If they could, and if they could offer something that wasn't gigantic in your hand, um, it sounds like they would, and that that's where eventually this is all going. Is that fair? Eventually? Right, But that's gonna be well well down the road. Right. What Apple wants to do is they want to own the entire stack. They want to own the phone, they want to own the network, and they want to own as much as possible. But there's a lot of stake here.

Apple can't just go around killing carriers that have helped them build the iPhone. This this long, right, Getting this infrastructure in place could take decades if you want to hit this globally, right, They can't just knock out one carrier in the US and expect all the other carriers internationally play ball with them, right. It's something that really

would require threading the needle. It might never completely happen, It might be an option in some circumstances, But I think this emergency functionality is a very happy medium because you're doing something that the wireless carriers don't have coverage for. This is basically mitigating the lost space on the planet

without cellular connection. Hey, Mark. So then I am curious for our audience because I actually talked about this a little bit yesterday because there was some satellite companies moving on this news, and there was a lot of not a lot of, but there were alice weighing in and saying, you know, uh, a Ridium might be the likely you know, satellite company that partners partners up anything like this, as

you said, five to ten years approximately away. So if someone is trying to make an investment play on this in terms of the satellite play, it's probably too early. I spoke to people who would know, and uh, this report from an analyst at William Blair would said Apple is likely to work with a Ridium is simply not

true my understanding. If they're not talking to a Ridium about this, they held brief discussions with them just to gauge, you know, knowledge about the satellite networks maybe a year or two or three ago, but since then there hasn't been any talks with them. Global Star put on an sec Finally in February indicated that another company paid them I believe around sixty million dollars to develop some infrastructure for some sort of product or service they can't talk about.

To me. That screams Apple, but it's hard to know for sure. If anyone's network was able to do this, it would be Global Star. But I will tell you that from my understanding, Global Star's network is not great. I have words to describe it that I can't say on the radio. Um, it's not really suitable for anything other than emergency text and such. And again this is going to be in very limited areas. You need to call emergency services from the phone. You're gonna get a

prompt on the iPhone. It tells you you need to walk around until you find a proper satellite. You're gonna get air messages. Right, this is no perfect technology. Global Star has not nailed it. And that takes me to something I wrote a out a couple of years ago where Apple's Ultimate bowls his deploy its own infrastructure. That's gonna be five to ten years away, but it's certainly something to working on. I love talking with you. Global Star was the one I was thinking about because it

was up sixty yesterday. Dropped back another sevent though, uh today, but great to get the clarification thirty seconds left. Uh, there's a story to Apple's new Watch likely to be delayed over production snags. What do we need to know? Just quickly? Yeah, so we're hearing the Apple is facing some last minute, eleven hour production issues on the Watch series seven because the new larger screen. It's unclear if

this means a delayed release date or supply constraints. I still say that a new Watch will be announced in the next six weeks. Alright, good stuff is always Thank you so much covered it all that is, of course our Markerman. He's a must read here at Bloomberg. He's our Bloomberg News technology reporter, uh, and he covers all things Apple. Check him out at Bloomberg dot com, also on the Bloomberg terminal, and always on his Twitter feed

at Mark German Crick. Check on Apples shares. We know hitting two and after tally and market cap just yesterday, stop giving back just about a half a percent, one fifty two thirty five the last trade. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week right here on Bloomberg Radio. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio. Well, a lot of headlines, of course, when it comes to COVID and the vaccine.

Today we had the European Union coming out reaching a goal of fully vaccinating sevent its adult population. Israel reported a record number of daily infections, and some news from Maderna about its vaccine being more effective in terms of immunity, potentially against FISER. So a lot to get through, uh, and I believe that's pertaining to a booster shop specifically. Back with us as Dr Mario Ramirez, he's managing director

at the national nonprofit organization Opportunity Lab. They work with healthcare, education, housing, it's all about improving outcomes for low income Americans. He also served as the Acting Director for the Office of Pandemic and Emergency Threats at h h S during the administration. Great void for a great voice, I should say, for us. He joins us on the phone from Washington, d C.

Dr Ramire is good to have you back. Um. There is a debate over booster shots, whether or not we should get it doesn't make sense, how do you see it? And why so? I am fully in favor of vaccine boosters for all Americans at this point, Carol Um, And I think this may stand in contrast a little bit

to what the CDC's Advisory Committee issued yesterday. But the reason that I think it's a good idea for us to roll boosters out to everyone here in the United States is primarily based on what we're seeing in data coming out of Israel, where they had a significant surge related to DELTA. They coincided with a significant drop in the immunity provided by the visor vaccine in that country

between the six and eight month mark. In the United States is at a position right now where we can sort of blunt the ongoing surge that we have here and prevent a worsening surge similar to what they experienced in Israel. And there's enough evidence, there's enough medical evidence

out there that the booster makes sense to have. Well, doesn't agree ongoing debate, And unfortunately, one of the things that we know during the pandemic right is that the speed of information that we can get from our gold standard randomized controlled trial, for instance, oftentimes takes too long

relative to the speed of an outbreak. And in this instance, I think we need to depend on what we're seeing from other countries around the world that have served as good indicators for what we should expect here in the United States. We saw what happened in the UK, We've seen what happened in Israel over the last few weeks, and I think, unfortunately we're unlikely to get that level of data here in the United States in time to

blunt this worsening surge. I've also never seen in situation like this, of course, we haven't lived for most of us during a health pandemic where it's kind of like, what vaccine did you get? Oh? Well, I got this one. And I say that because today we had news that murder Maderna's COVID vaccine generated more than double the antibodies of a similar shot made by Fiser and by in Tech. Uh. And this is in those initial two doses, not a booster,

which I think I said incorrectly before. So in that initial two doses, how are we as a general public supposed to kind of interpret that. Yeah, you know, I think this is really interesting from the basic science perspective, Carroll, right.

I mean, I think what we saw from both BISER and majournals at the five to six month mark was that these vaccines were between the two of them between nine effective at present preventing significant enough illness to put someone in the hospital, which is really ultimately what matters in terms of the number of antibodies that are produced

with either one of these vaccines. The more important determinant would be how long lasting that immunity is, and that might make or impart some ability to sort of make a relative quality judgment between those two. But at this point, we have seen evidence that shows that the efficacy for each of those vaccines is dropping off between the six and eight month mark, and so that's really what's more important here, rather than the number of antibodies to get produced.

So it's a question I've often put to our medical community, what should I be marking on my calendar as a date to get my booster shot? Is it six months? Is it eight months? I know we haven't gotten necessarily the final guidance on this, but what would you suggest? So it's an area of ongoing guidance. I suspect that when all of a sudden done, we're going to land

closer to the six month mark. Um. You know, the Biden administrations put out the September twentieth date as their original sort of line in the sand, and that was at the eight month mark, uh, and then we heard from the President that maybe they were thinking about moving

that back to five months. And I think a lot of that is based on data that we're seeing from overseas, which is, you know, somewhat uncertain and not being conducted to in the United States, which makes interpretation more difficult. So it's a little bit of a moving target. But in my own opinion, based on what I've seen from overseas data, I think the six month mark for this sort of third shot or booster is probably where we're gonna land. All right, Gonna leave it on that note.

We really do always appreciate your time. Dr Mario Ramirez, Managing director of our Opportunity Labs. As I mentioned to he was uh former acting director at the Office of Pandemic and Emergency Threats. That was during the Obama administration. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stenovic on Bloomberg Radio. Well, not sure if you've noticed with everything going on in our world,

but jury's election underway. In the trial of Elizabeth Holmes, remember her, founder of the blood testing startup Theara Nos. She is facing charges that she defrauded investors and patients by making false claims about our company's blood tests, as well as about the Thoro Nos financial position. Tracking all of this for us here at Bloomberg Bloomberg News Legal Alice June grass So, she's also host of Bloomberg Law weeknights at ten pm Wall Street Time on Bloomberg Radio.

She's here in our Bloomberg Interactive Broker's studio. Good to have you here. So tell us what's the timeline. I mean, this gonna be a long trial. It's going to be three to four months. So as they're sitting these jurors, that's a consideration that they're telling them it's gonna be

three to four months. And also they asked them about COVID by the way, one of the questions whether they would sit in a courtroom for that long with COVID and what the have been vaccinated among a questionnaire of about twenty eight questions that went into their hobbies, how much they knew about this case, which has been all over and if you know, it's HBO documentaries the movies made about it, So they asked them that and they all there was a question about whether they were venture

capitalism capitalists, what their experience with venture capitalists was. So it's going to be interesting. Well, that's one of the things I want to get to. I mean, the Charles and Silicon Valley, right, I mean, so in terms of getting a jury that hasn't heard a lot of information about her and the company, Uh, is that going to be difficult? And is that something that maybe weighs in

her favor and argument that they can put out there. Well, so far there were about two hundred in the potential pool that filled out that jury questionnaire, and according to the lawyers, about half of them knew about the case. But the judge has said that that is not going to stop a person for being on the jury because, let's face it, in the George Floyd case, in the

Marathon bomber case, people know about this. It's something that you're not going to find someone and you don't want someone who doesn't know anything about a case like this, But what they have to do is make sure that despite what they know, that they can be fair, that they can judge it on what they see and hear in the courtroom and not what they know from you know, from a movie that they saw, from an article that

they read. Well, and I do wonder if having some understanding of kind of the VC world and understanding how startups go right, We cover it a lot here and there are often a lot of claims made. There's a lot of money that gets involved, even in the early stages that can go on for years, and then companies that just don't pan out here. How might that actually help her well? I think that one of the things, and experts agree on this that that the defense would

like to have. There are two kinds of jurors. I think one is a juror that is savvy about Silicon Valley startups and sort of knows that a lot of this is puffery and what you have to do in order to get investors to come in and against that is going to be the prosecution, which is going to say, we want to a line between puffery and between actual fraud. We don't want this. This is the biggest fraud in Silicon Valley history. We don't want this to happen again.

So here's the line. The other jury they're going to want is someone that's going to be sympathetic to her defense. She has over the weekend less Thursday, Let's say the judge released documents that had been undersealed, so he unsealed them, and in that it shows that the defense is going to try to show that she was physically, psychologically, and emotionally abused by Sonny Bell Wannie, her former lover and

the president of the company Profound Company. Right, Yes, that he controlled everything from what she ate to what she wore, and that she so the process here is that alone is not a defense, But the defense would be dress that she didn't know what she was doing. She had no choice in what she was doing because he was controlling or sort of like the mastermind and the puppet that he was controlling her, and that's so she did what he said. It's it reminds me of the gun

to the head defense. I had to do it because that person had a gun to my head. So she had no choice, and that would take away the intent element which is the key element here. They have to show that she intended to deceive investors about this, investors and patience about this. Soon. You've covered a lot of trials, a lot of legal situations, and I think about this when in particular, almost everybody in the media I know,

we have Bloomberg have done stories on her. I mean, for such a long time she was a get everybody wanted to have a conversation with her because she was really, uh, kind of up ending a big part of the testing world in terms of how things are. How will that I don't know, I mean, this goes back. How do

people kind of get their head around that. It's it's such a tough sell to me because you have this image of her as being confident and self for sure for real Steve Jobs, she was kind of exactly and also she cultivated that she wore the turtlenecks, she had the deep voice that some people say was a little bit put on and so, and also the way she handled interviews and the way she answered questions. It's very hard to reconcile that with a woman who is being,

you know, a puppet for someone else. The other thing, though, that she has on Her side, though, is that Balwani is not in the courtroom because he's going to be tried separately because of this defense. He's going to be tried separately next year, and they can't call him as a witness because that would be against his Fifth Amendment rights. So he emphatically denies this in court papers, but he's not going to be able to come in and say

that's not true. Does that help Elizabeth? That helps her, But still I think it's overwhelming for the defense to to try to show this there there is a there. She's been examined by a psychologist for the defense who's going to testify, and also psychologists of the prosecution. So you're going to hear a psychological you know, a lot of psychological expert testimony, and that will come out both ways. One side will say, oh, yes, she was order that. Well,

is she acted to testify? She is? And I find this hard to believe, but she is expected to testify. Her lawyers have said that it's more likely than not. They told the judge that she'll testify, and in order to establish this defense, it seems like it would make sense that the best would be to have her saying this rather than to have a psychologist saying she told me this. But the problem is then the cross examination.

I mean, it's always a gamble to put someone on the stand, but here you can imagine some of the questions that you've been raising that the prosecutor is going to raise. Also, she was did a deposition with the SEC because she was charged by the SEC and settled those charges, and she six hundred times said I don't know, So now is she going to say I know? And she never told the SEC that she was involved with Sonny about wanting and that she was under his control.

So you understand the legal world, who do you think has the tougher cases at the prosecution of the defense? Prosecution has the burden of proof, so they had to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. The defense only has to get one juror to hang it up. But I still think the defense has the tougher case to make here, just case for case, okay, And is it like if she loses what then what's the impact on her? Well, the biggest I mean the longest sentence would be twenty years,

but she'll probably the jail time. Yes, absolutely absolutely, She's she's charged with multiple conspiracy counts and fraud counts. So this is very it's very serious, and also the prosecutors want to make I think they want to make an example out of her that you know, for Silicon Valley, because there's been a lot of startups, you know that just they're wild, they're great, and then they just fail miserably.

Why did they pick on her? A lot of people have been asking that question, so they really want to prove their case, and they want to prove that you can't do this. There's a line and you can't cross that line. Well, fascinated to watch and I know you'll be covering it big time for us and looking forward to all your coverage. June, Thanks so much. June Grosso. She's Bloomberg News legal analyst and you can catch her week night. It's at ten pm Wall Street Time on

Bloomberg Radio. She is host of Bloomberg Law. Thanks for listening to Bloomberg Business Week. Download the podcast on iTunes, SoundCloud, or Bloomberg dot com. And you can also listen to our radio show at two pm Eastern on Bloomberg Radio or watch us on YouTube search Bloomberg Global News