Making emergency calls on iPhone and giving your location

Calling emergency services on iPhone

If you need emergency services anywhere in the world then your first choice should be to use the iPhone's Emergency SOS feature. This will use the correct number to call the local emergency services and in many cases it will share your GPS position with the responders. Your iPhone can also optionally sound loud alarms before making the emergency call. If, for some reason, the emergency service doesn't receive your GPS location and you are uncertain of your position then you may be able to use the what 3 words app during your emergency call to discover your GPS location as a set of three words. These what 3 words addresses are accepted by many UK emergency services; you will need to check the what 3 words web pages for other countries.

iPhone emergency SOS

Although a simple 999 call in the UK may automatically share your GPS location with the emergency services I wasn't able to confirm this with Apple or local emergency services. Apple advise that you use the emergency SOS feature to make emergency calls. All you need to do is to press and hold both the side button and either of the volume buttons for about a second. Release the buttons when the emergency screen appears or when VoiceOver speaks. If you aren't using VoiceOver, make the emergency call by sliding the red SOS  button to the right. If you are using VoiceOver, swipe right, probably three times, to the emergency call button and double tap. Alternatively explore a little below the vertical centre of the screen for the emergency call button. If you summon the emergency screen accidentally or to test the feature, you can locate the cancel button at the bottom of the screen. When you have finished your emergency call or cancelled the emergency screen you will need to enter your passcode to enable TouchID or FaceID to unlock your phone. 

If you prefer to initiate the emergency call in one step, go to Settings / Emergency SOS and turn on Call with Hold and Release. To make an emergency call press and continue to hold the side button and one of the volume buttons. As you continue to press the buttons a countdown will start. At the end of the countdown you should release the buttons and a call will be made. If you release the buttons before the countdown ends, no call will be made. Alarm sounds will start squawking about half way through the countdown and will stop when the call is in progress.

An alternative way to summon the emergency screen is with 5 fairly rapid presses on the side button. You can determine the effect of the 5 presses at Settings / Emergency SOS / Call with 5 Button Presses. If this is turned on then a countdown will start and an emergency call will be made at the end of the count down and the squawking alarms will have sounded. If you decide not to make the call you can use the Stop button near bottom centre of the screen. If Call with 5 Button Presses is turned off, 5 button presses takes you to the emergency call screen from which you can make the emergency call.

The Call Quietly setting may also be of interest. This would allow you to initiate an emergency call covertly with all alarm sounds and VoiceOver speech silenced when you use either Call with Hold and Release or Call with 5 button Presses. I suppose this might be helpful in a situation where you felt threatened in order to call emergency services and just let them hear the person threatening you and learn your location. But it does silence any alarms that might bring passers by to your assistance.

Whichever way you initiate it, the emergency SOS feature calls the local emergency number, often shares your GPS with the responders and automatically alerts any emergency contacts you have set up with a text message that gives them your location. They will continue to be informed of your location if it changes. Apple's documentation states that the emergency SOS is slightly different in India. For details of this and full details of how emergency SOS works, I recommend you read Apple's guide to emergency SOS.

If an emergency operator asks for your location and you need to use what3words, remember that you won't be able to open the app using Siri during a call so make sure the app is easy to find on your home screen or use spotlight search to locate it.

You probably won't, but if you test this feature and accidentally call emergency services please don't hang up. Let the call go through and then explain the call was made accidentally.

Sharing your location using what3words

what3words is a free appthat can help you to give your precise location to a third party. The app has acceptable accessibility for both blind and low vision users for most purposes. It works by assigning three words to every 3 metre square of land on the planet so it can pinpoint your location very accurately but be aware that GPS accuracy can vary with location and atmospheric conditions. The authors of what3words recommend waiting a few seconds after opening the app until the blue dot representing your position on the map settles down and then tapping the circular button  with an angled arrow an inch or two above the bottom right corner of the screen to update the address which was originally given. VoiceOver users may not be able to see the blue dot moving but should be OK so long as they wait for 3seconds or so. The relevant button is labelled "whow my estimated what3words address based on my GPS" and is probably already selected. If it isn't explore the screen for it an inch or two above the right bottom corner.

Low vision users should note that the what3words address isn't displayed using their preferred large font size and they may need to use Zoom in order to read the address. VoiceOver users may need to use the characters position on the rotor to check the spelling of words they aren't sure they heard correctly when spoken by VoiceOver

There is an accessibility setting in the what3words app that may help both low vision and VoiceOver users when reporting your location to others over a phone call. I recommend we all turn this on. In the app, locate and activate the menu button at top left. It may be labelled "edit" for VOiceOver users. Locate and activate the settings button. Locate and activate the accessibility button. Turn on the show read aloud button for what3words addresses button. This places a button labelled "read aloud this address" at bottom left of the what3words screen. For those of you using your vision, it is a circular button enclosing a loudspeaker icon. This button will speak the what3words address in a clear, steadily paced voice. You do need to take care though. Even using this speak button, I still had trouble distinguishing the word hype in my current address and thought it was height. So do take care and use Zoom or the rotor if you are in any doubt. 

How does it work at the other end when someone tries to locate you using a what3words address?

If a three word address is typed into the app it offers choices of locations for words that may sound similar to the words that have been entered. With luck, one of those will be a realistic location. Unfortunately, when I typed in height instead of hype, followed by  the other two correct words in my what 3 words address I was offered 3 locations. Two were over 4 thousand miles away from my location and the other was at least in England but 129 miles away. You get the point.  It's important to get the words absolutely correct.

The what3words app does have a share button but it isn't possible  to share your location to an emergency operator using this button. You must speak the words yourself or get them spoken by the button at the bottom left of your screen. An alternative would be to use the share button to message a contact and ask them in the message to call emergency services for you but this obviously incurs delay. The app's share button is great for sharing your location with other individuals so long as they also use what3words.  what3words support offers advice on using what3words to share your location with emergency services in the UK. Note that acceptance of what3words addresses is not yet universal by UK emergency services and significantly less so elsewhere in the world.

Don't get me wrong; it could be a life saver but please install the app and practice by calling a friend and giving them your what3words address and ask them to check that the address is correct. It may be best to open what3words and get the three word address before you start your phone call and try to memorise the three words. If you need to check the address again during the call you can use the app switcher to return to what3words during the call. If you think you may sometime need to use what3words to share your location it's important that you practice beforehand and iron out any issues you discover. It will be much harder in a genuine emergency.

Giving your location using Siri

If you want to let another iPhone user know where you are instruct Siri to "share my location with Jim" and Jim will receive a Message showing your location on a map. Unfortunately this may not work if the recipient doesn't use an iPhone.

If you are in a built-up area, Siri may come in handy when you need to report your location to anyone from whom you are requesting assistance. Just ask Siri "where am I?" and it will speak your location. But this needs to be used with care. Siri may speak your location before GPS has settled down so it's sensible to try a couple of times to make sure the response is consistent. Second, the address that Siri speaks is often a misleading, partial address in the UK and I suspect that the same is also the case in other countries.  In large towns or cities, Siri's spoken address will be fine but if you are in a village, Siri may only speak a house number and street name followed by the name of the nearest big town. Low vision users should scroll up to see the full postal address and VoiceOver users should touch near the screen centre and then swipe right to locate the full postal address. You will need to commit this address to memory before making your call or maybe take a screen shot. Recent iPhones will be able to speak the text in the screen shot to VoiceOver users. I have written a Siri Shortcut called "Speak Address" which should always give a full address in built up areas including village names and postcodes, Zip codes, etc. If you would like to have this available you can  install it from my page of Siri Shortcuts.

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