Apple's solution is making use of special features in the radio package. The post states unmodified phones.

Still, the fact that Apple has figured out the weird RF voodoo already makes it seem like a less ridiculous proposition.

Qualcomm is the one who has figured out the weird RF voodoo you speak of. Apple is just consuming that.

Is there any tech manual out there? Would love to see how it works.

I always assumed the main thing with satellite messengers was that they transmit with much higher power. Not that such a system is easy to design, but the “voodoo” mentioned previously was more about achieving compatibility with an existing RF system at much longer ranges than the system was designed for.

it's not rf voodoo. it's a highly spread signal at an extremely low nitrate. this has been common for communications satellites for a very long time.

Apples solution is in SOS emergency situations only. It is extremely limited in what you can transmit—which near as I can tell is just a well defined message format.

except the article mentions specifically that Apple is partnered with Globalstar, not Starlink, for their emergency services functionality

And except that it actually saved someone’s life

Apple’s solution is to have you find the signal and manually point to it to send a very small payload on a very slow link.

If we’re looking for existing technology, current actually working GPS phones would be a better showcase of what’s possible.

You know how slow unassisted GPS is?