Hiroshi Lockheimer, the company’s senior vice president for platforms and ecosystems, confirmed the appearance of satellite communications on Android smartphones. However, it will have to wait a bit – there will be no new functionality in version 13 of the operating system, which will be released this fall.

what is known

Unfortunately it it certainly does not mean that all Android smartphones can connect to satellites. According to the company, support for this type of technology will require compatible equipment that entry-level models cannot rely on.

This feature will appear on Android 14 in the second half of 2023. It is mainly designed for emergencies and the elimination of “dead zones” in cellular coverage. It’s unclear how far Google will go now, but rivals are already promising support for SMS, MMS, and even messengers. Voice calls will be added in the future.

• It will be remembered that the first to announce the possibility of direct connection of smartphones and satellites was the partnership of two companies – Elon Musk’s SpaceX and the American mobile operator T-Mobile. The feature will be powered by Starlink satellites and T-Mobile’s own sources and frequencies.
• Later insiders spoke of a similar development by Apple. The company has been working on this feature for a while and will likely launch it on the iPhone 14, which will be introduced on September 7. In that case, the feature will apparently work thanks to a partnership with Globalstar, which announced in February it had purchased 17 satellites to provide “continuous satellite services to potential customers.”

It is worth noting that Huawei also announced a similar possibility. The Mate 50 smartphone will be able to connect to Beidou satellites and send and receive messages. The company actually confirmed this information, which was previously rumored, by releasing some new images and details. The technology will have a limit of 1000 Chinese characters and will only allow messages to be sent to emergency numbers.