1. This feature is relatively expensive for Apple. Satellite communication isn't free, and Apple don't have their own infrastructure for this.
2. They've signed a 2 year contract with whichever provider they're using.
3. They want to see if this feature is even popular before committing to supporting it for longer at all.
The number of Afib/high heart rate detections are miniscule, but serves as great marketing. Good enough for me to order one today.
I suspect it’ll be commonplace for many/most people will have some kind of health monitoring device.
It can detect atrial fibrillation, but that's a different thing from a regular heart attack.
Their work on accessibility disproves your assertion.
But they also don’t want to commit to a price until they have a couple years of experience under their belts.
Whatever the terms of the deal is, hitting certain benchmarks is part of it.
By then, there could other satellite-based services that would be subscription-based.
Apple certainly doesn’t need a subsidy; if anything, they may end up subsidizing future satellite launches with the $200 billion—-give or take—-they’re sitting on.
While not always true internationally, at least in the US most jurisdictions won't charge for rescue as long unless you weren't careless and reckless. Even where state law allows for recovering rescue costs, it's a high bar before they'll actually send out a bill... they normally don't want to discourage people from calling from help until it's too late, if it's truly needed. (Keep in mind that rescue in the wilderness can easily take 12-48 hours.)
That said, laws allowing the state to recoup rescue costs are becoming more common as satellite messengers have become more prevalent, leading to more non-emergency nuisance calls.
See: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/06/us/rescue-hikers-cost.htm...
Cost of rescue really depends where you're at though. In a national park like Mt. Rainier you aren't actually charged even if they have to helicopter you off the top of the mountain--rescues are paid for by the cost of a climbing permit that everyone pays to go above 10k feet. In other places SAR teams operate like volunteer fire departments and get funding from the county. But yeah, in some places a helicopter rescue is going to cost you directly and it is not cheap--at Mt. Shasta the rangers were telling me it was about $14k per incident.
I have a Zoleo device and pay for the $40/yr coverage. You just register your device's IMEI with them.