iOS 16.3 Beta: Call With Hold Update For Emergency SOS

The functionality of “Call with Hold” for Emergency SOS has just been updated in iOS 16.3 beta for developers after Apple’s announcement on January 10. The update makes a few small changes to the operating system for the iPhone and iPad, including how the Emergency SOS function operates.

Check out all the details on the latest iOS 16.3 beta.

iOS 16.3 Beta Released New Feature

The second beta of iOS 16.3 was made available by Apple on January 10 to developers, bringing a few small changes to the operating system for the iPhone and iPad. Is it for better or worse?

One of those adjustments, more precisely the Call with Hold option, has got an upgrade on how the Emergency SOS functionality runs.

What’s new?

Apple explains how Call with Hold and Release works now:

If you continuously hold the side button and either volume button, a countdown begins, and an alarm sounds. After the countdown, if you release the buttons, iPhone will call emergency services.

So, “Call with Hold and Release” is the new name for the “Call with Hold” option. That’s pretty cool! The iPhone will now hold the emergency services call until you remove the buttons, even after the countdown, according to the updated description.

At this moment, it’s unknown whether the modification is ongoing or whether the company is only testing the new behavior. We’ll have to wait and see.

If you didn’t know, Emergency SOS could instantly contact emergency services by just holding down the iPhone’s buttons for a short period of time. Actually, it was first included in iOS years ago.

If you do that, your iPhone will start a countdown and sound a loud alert before calling the emergency authorities.

Crash Detection, which utilizes the iPhone’s sensors to recognize automobile wrecks and automatically notify the emergency services, has been merged with Emergency SOS in iPhone 14 releases.