Qualcomm’s satellite SOS for Android feature didn’t make it to launch
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Qualcomm is scrapping plans to offer a satellite SOS feature for Android phones that would have rivaled the one offered by Apple on its latest iPhones. The feature, Snapdragon Satellite, was announced in partnership with the satellite communications company Iridium in January. Now, just 10 months later, the plan is already dead.
Iridium said on Thursday that Qualcomm “elected to terminate” their partnership on the feature because no smartphone maker signed up to use it. The feature had already been “successfully developed and demonstrated,” Iridium writes. But apparently, the interest wasn’t there.
Qualcomm told CNBC that it’ll continue working with Iridium on “standards-based solutions” to satellite connectivity, even as it scraps the…
