Apple had plans to supply a Starlink-like satellite tv for pc residence web service in collaboration with Boeing, The Info experiences.
Beginning in 2015, Apple held discussions with Boeing about “Undertaking Eagle,” a plan to launch a service to supply wi-fi web companies to iPhones and houses. The businesses would have launched 1000’s of satellites into orbit across the Earth to beam web companies right down to the floor. Apple supposed to promote antennas that customers may connect to their home windows to disperse web connectivity all through their properties.
Apple believed the plan would assist present a extra seamless expertise, with cell carriers seen as “needed however inconvenient companions” that held again the iPhone. Just like the transition to Apple silicon, Apple noticed Undertaking Eagle as one other strategy to scale back its reliance different firms. Apple spent $36 million testing out a Undertaking Eagle idea at a facility in El Segundo, California.
The service was initially scheduled to launch in 2019, however it by no means noticed the sunshine of day. CEO Tim Prepare dinner was involved that Undertaking Eagle would endanger Apple’s relationship with the telecoms trade. He additionally expressed considerations over its important price with an unclear near-term enterprise case. In 2016, Apple canceled the challenge and senior employees concerned in it left the corporate.
Former {hardware} engineering chief Dan Riccio then shaped a bunch taking a look at new wi-fi alternatives that might assist differentiate Apple’s gadgets. In 2018, Apple carried out talks with satellite tv for pc web suppliers akin to OneWeb about investing in them to deploy a house web service by way of satellites. OneWeb purportedly instructed Apple that the service would price $30 billion and $40 billion to ship, and comparable considerations to people who killed Undertaking Eagle put an finish to the ambition.
The group then refocused across the thought of providing satellite tv for pc communications to iPhones in distant areas that weren’t already served by typical mobile networks. Apple launched its Emergency SOS by way of Satellite tv for pc characteristic in 2022.
In 2023, Apple’s satellite tv for pc staff proposed to make use of a brand new era of satellites to ship full, unrestricted web service to iPhones in distant places. The characteristic would have price Apple considerably greater than Globalstar’s current service for Apple, growing from a number of dozen satellites to a whole lot. Apple finally once more declined to supply it as a result of considerations that it might anger cell carriers.
In the present day, some Apple staff and senior executives query the long-term viability of the iPhone’s satellite tv for pc connectivity options. Former Apple staff who labored on the challenge say the Globalstar community is already outdated, gradual, and restricted in comparison with SpaceX, and can proceed to be by way of the subsequent decade.
Apple has not but began charging iPhone customers for satellite tv for pc connectivity options, and has prolonged the free entry interval by way of at the least September 2025. The corporate’s reluctance to cost clients is seemingly associated to concern that it may set off the U.S. authorities to control Apple like a telecommunications service, which may pressure the corporate to construct surveillance again doorways into iMessage.
The present satellite tv for pc connectivity options price Apple a whole lot of tens of millions of {dollars} per 12 months. Some prime executives, together with software program chief Craig Federighi and head of company growth Adrian Perica, have advocated discontinuing the options. They argue that clients are extra seemingly to enroll in satellite tv for pc options by way of their cell carriers.
