Also posted this elsewhere in this thread. With Garmin you pay €19.99 for this per month*. That is almost as expensive as all of Apple One. Probably Apple can let scale play in their favor, but offering satellite coverage is not a rounding error.
With Garmin you pay ~$20/mo for a very different service. I use inreach to send and receive text messages to family when I’m offroading. I can send them locations I’m at, casual chats, and check in that I’m OK.
I fully expect Apple to offer these same things soon, but for now inReach has a different value prop that’s a lot better.
Also posted this elsewhere in this thread. With Garmin you pay €19.99 for this per month*. That is almost as expensive as all of Apple One. Probably Apple can let scale play in their favor, but offering satellite coverage is not a rounding error.
* https://support.garmin.com/en-US/?faq=Z0mdgyBwqaAHP4QLy78UcA
I use a spot device and have a plan I can turn on and off for trips. It’s $15 to have it on for one month.
With Garmin you pay ~$20/mo for a very different service. I use inreach to send and receive text messages to family when I’m offroading. I can send them locations I’m at, casual chats, and check in that I’m OK.
I fully expect Apple to offer these same things soon, but for now inReach has a different value prop that’s a lot better.
I’m keeping my inreach + subscription because it’s my redundancy in case my phone shits the bed.
For the purpose of an emergency rescue out in the bush, I’d prefer something a lot more robust than a smartphone.
The inreach is built like a tank and the battery just doesn’t die.