Slashdot Mirror
Man Calls 911 To Fix Broken iPhone
tekgoblin writes "For some reason Michael Skopec of Illinois thought that calling 911 would get his broken iPhone fixed. It got him arrested instead. From the article: 'After the five calls were made police traced the calls to his home in Illinois where they found him drunk and belligerent. He was arrested because he would not follow the police officers orders. It has yet to be made clear what he was actually trying to accomplish by calling 911 to get help with his iPhone. Although he was arrested he only faces misdemeanor charges and has to be in court next week.'"
A broken iPhone really is an emergency! That means I can't play Angry Birds!
Let's play what's more sad!
Which of the following is more sad?
1) A man calls 911 to fix a broken iPhone.
2) Slashdot decides to report on a man calling 911 to fix a broken iPhone.
Stay tuned for the answer after this commercial break.
The article was short on details.
I could see it not being that he was truly calling 911 to fix his phone, but rather the screen was locked. While I don't have an iPhone, my phone does allow 911 calls if the screen is locked, so I'm guessing the i-thing is similar. If he was too drunk to remember his unlock code he may have drunkenly hit the emergency call button multiple times.
Of course that's still pretty stupid sounding, but not as bad a confusing the police with a Genius Bar.
Worthy of Slashdot, this is not.
Obviously the problem has NOTHING to do with the iPhone or its owner. The issue is why the 911 system is badly designed that this happens.
An emergency system like 911 really needs a solid and intuitive user interface that will prevent errors like this.
I look forward to the introduction of i911 on the upcoming iPhone 5.
Three Squirrels
... InB4 : no, not all iPhone user are that stupid. (anticipating cunning remarks from self-declared "superior" android users)
It's true, though: No android user would call the cops while drunk and belligerent. We all leave such mundane tasks to unique hardware and software that we are free to develop in the open android ecosystem, unlike the pitiful iSerfs.
When I want to get my ass kicked by the cops, my BeagleBoard-based(runs linux, of course) automated kegerator sends me a text message when it hits a threshold deltaBeer/deltaT value. The IOIO attached to my phone uses its breathalyser sensor and firmware to verify my state of inebriation and then sends a GET to the local server that my custom libpigs interface provides. Libpigs dials 911 and uses the Google text-to-speech mechanism to read Markov-chain generated pseudorandom rants based on mashups of obscure punk that you wouldn't have heard of and the lesser known speeches of 19th century radicals until they show up.
Once the accelerometers verify that I'm getting beaten down, my phone automatically uploads to youtube and starts Googling for personal injury lawyers!