by Apple’s going to have to add a panic button to the iPhone if it wants to sell it in India. A A new motion signed into law in India will require all phones, including iPhones, to feature a ‘panic button’ to call emergency services and GPS for location pings from January 1st, 2017.
A local report that says the panic button legislation is being made to aid the security of women. While there’s no way Apple or Jony Ive could be against that reason, there’s no way Jony Ive or his design team are going to be for adding a button to the iPhone. It’s okay, they won’t actually have to do it.
The document dictates that smartphones need to add a physical button dedicated to emergency response or repurpose the power button with an additional gesture to initiate a call for help.
Looking at report it’s quite specific about how the call is to be instigated with three quick presses of the power button being required and the ability to make the call without any sort of touch screen interaction.
Other details are vauge with how to track down the phone using GPS but who knows perhaps iBeacon may get another lease of life.
It seems unlikely that Apple will adorn its sleek iPhones with a special button just for one country, so compliance will likely come via the latter software-based method.
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