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Issue link: https://digital.macdirectory.com/i/1509247
How to Disable Rapid Response Updates on iPhone and iPad By Sergio Velasquez A special thanks to iDropNews for republishing permission. Images provided by iDropNews. Be sure to visit them at idropnews.com By default, your iPhone or iPad can now automatically install special software updates called Rapid Response Updates. One of these was the expansion of its satellite services to go beyond only providing help in the most serious, life-threatening emergencies. Launched with last year’s iPhone 14 lineup, Emergency SOS via Satellite is a groundbreaking new feature that has already helped a great many folks reach out to emergency services when they’re off the grid with no cellular or Wi-Fi coverage — from calling in water bombers to douse a Canadian wildfire, rescuing a family from the Maui wildfires, or saving college students from a frigid canyon. Emergency SOS via Satellite was launched in the US and Canada last year, but it’s since expanded to 12 other countries on three continents, including Australia, Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, and the U.K. Yesterday Apple announced that it’s coming to Spain and Switzerland later this month, where it will undoubtedly be helpful to snowboarders and skiers adventuring in the alps. Of course, you’d expect a satellite-based feature to have global coverage, but the limitation here isn’t the technology. The satellites are there, but Apple still needs to get the emergency services infrastructure in place so that first responders can properly handle calls that come in via satellite. This leads to the next phase of Apple’s emergency satellite features that the company introduced yesterday. What Are Apple’s Rapid Security Responses? Rapid Security Responses are a new type of update available for the iPhone, iPad, and Mac. These updates aren’t your regular software updates. Instead, they’re meant to provide important security improvements to your devices — usually to fix issues that are serious enough that they can’t wait for the next regular software update. Think of these as emergency updates. If Apple spots a possible security vulnerability that hackers can exploit, it can launch a quick update just to patch those specific issues. This makes your iPhone less vulnerable to attack, especially when dealing with exploits that have already been reported to exist “in the wild.”