Heading out of Sawbill in a few days and wondering if anybody has tried out the iPhone satellite texting option with iOS 18? Just got the 16 model today and hoping to send messages to my significant other outside of Verizon’s coverage.

I’ve read through everything I could find on here and other places, but I haven’t seen any reports of anybody who actually used it. Thanks!

I haven’t used it in the BWCA but I’ve used it in wilderness & mountain areas in Washington state and it works.

I still bring my Garmin InReach on my trips for emergency reliability though.

Worked great with the T-Mobile starlink network.

You can test this out yourself, there is a demo feature in settings under Emergency SOS.

Same as others...not yet up north but will try it there in a week.

Have some dead zones around my farm and got it to work without issue. Read up on it and follow the steps.

Only minor complaint is the recipient gets some indication that your message came from and/or that the reply will be received by satellite.

Which is sort of fine, though there are some work contacts that I'd prefer not know that I am off on yet another wilderness trip.

Thanks everybody for the replies. I connected to the satellite just fine using the demo, I’m assuming this will work out just fine. I’ll report back when I’m back from my trip.

Do you know if this will work with other/older models? I only use mine phone for pictures up there, but would be nice to know if I could send my wife a message without using our garmin

Cc26: "Do you know if this will work with other/older models? I only use mine phone for pictures up there, but would be nice to know if I could send my wife a message without using our garmin "

My understanding is that iPhone 14 & up have this capability.

Hahaha of course…. I have the 13… and just paid it off a few months ago- oh well looks like I will continue to use the garmin

Just got back. I was able to send texts via satellite on my iPhone 16 without any trouble. With that said, it’s still mostly beta technology for cellphones. It might still be worth it to rent or use a satellite phone or messaging system.

But, just wanted to report that it worked out just fine for me.