When it comes to location services, Apple’s iPhones have built-in GPS which allows the device to be pinpointed to its location, which comes in handy for apps such as Find My iPhone, Find My Friends, and so on, which has in the past been used to save lives and to locate people who have been kidnapped.
While such features are great, they’re not exactly perfect which is why emergency services organizations around the world are now urging Apple to implement a potentially life-saving location feature in the iPhone. Dubbed the Advanced Mobile Location (AML), this is a feature built into carrier networks that can pinpoint with extreme accuracy the location of the person making an emergency call.
This means that when an emergency call is made, GPS and WiFi chips inside the mobile device will automatically transmit the precise location to emergency services. This will come in handy for times when a person makes a call and they’re not too sure of where they are, like if they’re lost hiking in the woods or if they have been kidnapped and can’t recognize their location. It is said to be so precise to the point where it can even tell emergency services the specific room in an apartment.
The European Emergency Number Association reached out to both Apple and Google last year to implement the feature, something which Google was quick to do and has been enabled for Android devices since last year, but Apple has yet to respond. It is unclear why Apple has resisted implementing it, but some cite privacy concerns as a possible reason.
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