Apple has secured a new patent that hints at its ambitions to roll out more robust satellite communications for future iPhones.
The patent, granted on Wednesday, focuses on one of the challenges facing satellite communications: A device like a smartphone can struggle to maintain a connection, given that orbiting satellites stay are in the sky briefly before falling out of view.
As Patently Apple reports, the company’s patent proposes a “handover procedure,” ensuring that one communication beam from an orbiting satellite will smoothly transition to a second beam from a separate satellite. Thus, each satellite functions as a “transparent network relay node,” enabling groups of smartphones to remain connected, Apple wrote in the filing.
(Credit: Apple)
The streamlined handover procedure would be key to enabling voice calls and internet browsing through Apple’s emerging satellite services — something that Cupertino also hinted it was working on in a separate patent granted two years ago.
The company first introduced satellite technology in 2022 with Emergency SOS, giving iPhone owners a way to message emergency services in cellular dead zones. Last year, Cupertino expanded the feature by enabling satellite-based texts through iMessage. But in a support document, Apple notes: “Messages via satellite might take a little longer to send. In ideal conditions with a direct view of the sky and horizon, a message might take 30 seconds to send.”
To improve the satellite features, Apple in October invested another $1 billion in satellite communication provider Globalstar, its partner on the iPhone satellite features. Importantly, the funding will be used to deliver more mobile satellite services to Apple and to build a new satellite constellation.
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Details about the next-generation constellation are scarce. But Apple’s patent has been designed to work with a variety of satellites at different altitudes, including low-Earth orbiting satellites similar to SpaceX’s Starlink system. In addition, the patent suggests the company could design iPhone chips optimized to communicate with its satellite network.
(Credit: Apple)
However, Apple isn’t alone in powering satellite connectivity to today’s phones. T-Mobile is starting to power satellite messaging in the US through SpaceX’s cellular Starlink system. Meanwhile, AT&T and Verizon are partnering with startup AST SpaceMobile to also deliver satellite connectivity to consumer smartphones.
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About Michael Kan
Senior Reporter
