There’s been a lot of research into emergency UX. Basically, it needs to be dead simple or people die. In an emergency, people are usually panicked, injured or in shock. The tool needs to do its thing simply and effortlessly to cut through the panic and confusion of a real emergency. I have an avalanche transponder that is one big button because when you friend just got buried under 20 tons of snow and rocks, you have the leftover brain for one button.

From the demo, I think Apple is very aware of this which is why they give you a series of canned prompts. They’ve probably already used up a significant cognitive load by having you point the phone for signal that having you type as well was considered dangerous.