Emergency SOS. A new feature with the ios11 upgrade (available on iPhone 5s and above) is the ability to quickly call for help and send an emergency SOS to specific contacts. The beauty of it is that you don’t need to know the emergency number of the country you are in, Apple takes care of that for you. It is one you should be aware of though cause you might accidentally trip it.
For its setup you will need to have your emergency contacts (eg your family members) in your Medical ID area (see tip #45). And you can check your setup options in Settings – Emergency SOS.
To make it work on your iPhone X, 8 or 8+ press and hold the side button on your phone (what I call the on/off button) and either volume button until the Emergency sos slider appears. Then drag the slider across. Instead of dragging the slider, if you continue to hold the buttons a countdown commences and an alert starts. If you continue holding until the count down finishes it automatically calls. (This is what I’ve accidentally done).
To make it work on your iPhone 7 or earlier, press the side button (on/off) 5 times in quick succession. And then drag the emergency slider over.
You can activate it on your Apple Watch too by pressing the side button and holding and then sliding the Emergency SOS button from left to right.
What it will do? It will call the emergency number, in some countries you choose the police, fire or ambulance. After that call ends it will text your emergency contacts with a text message unless you choose to cancel. It will send them your location, and for a period after you enter SOS mode it will send updates (up to 24 hrs) when your location changes. You will get reminders every 4 hrs to check if you want to turn it off.
Share the knowledge and follow for regular tips (tip #16 for daily tips).
