Why Apple Watches, the iPhone 14, and Disney’s Roller Coasters Don’t Match

While Apple’s iPhone 14 is creating waves with its release, sometimes, technology isn’t quite so helpful when on a Disney roller coaster.

Being at a Walt Disney World Resort and Disneyland Resort Theme Park is an experience worth documenting. With many an attraction and ride imagineered to give Guests the ultimate Disney experience they’re looking for, a Disney Park is designed to be a time worth writing home about. Often Guests at Magic Kingdom Park, Disney’s Hollywood Studios, Disney’s Animal Kingdom, Disneyland Park, or Disney California Adventure can be seen with their phones out, taking photos and videos of the magical lands and area.

But when it comes to the technology that we love to use at the Theme Parks, it’s constantly developing. And with Apple’s latest release, the iPhone 14—unveiled on September 16—users have discovered a significant issue with the phone and one of its brand-new safety features, at least when they’re at Theme Parks.

And that issue comes from the feature: Crash Detection.

The Apple iPhone 14’s new Crash Detection feature was designed to step in during life-threatening scenarios. If an iPhone 14 user is involved in a severe vehicle collision, the feature is programmed to call emergency services for help. However, it seems that this feature has been left confused by very non-life-threatening scenarios, like when someone is riding a roller coaster at a Theme Park.

The Wall Street Journal reported that in the short time that the iPhone 14 has been available, the Crash Detection feature had misinterpreted a ride onboard a roller coaster attraction as a car crash more than once.

In particular,  one user, Sara White, experienced this when she visited Kings Island Park in Ohio. While riding the Mystic Timbers roller coaster, Sara’s iPhone 14 Crash Detection feature mistook the incident for a car collision and prompted the phone to dial 911. Per WSJ, White’s scenario was one of six that have happened, evidenced by six different recordings of crash detection calls to 911 from the Warren County Communications Center, placed because the phones misidentified rides at Kings Island for car crashes.

The situation arose enough that Coaster 101 took to Twitter to ask users about their experiences with the iPhone 14 on rides:

Apple Watch users, has this happened to you on a coaster? pic.twitter.com/GzfqnmjZ2J

— Coaster101.com (@Coaster101) September 28, 2022

Multiple users shared their stories of how they either turned the feature off on a ride or shared an incident of when this happened to them during their time on a ride with the Apple Watch on.

The faux-emergency calls are not appreciated by 911: as user @ty_morning_nap commented, “IIRC Regional police service around Wonderland has tweeted out something about how it’s a problem… It happened to me once with my phone, and they had to call me back to make sure everything was okay.” 

We at Disney Fanatic will continue to keep readers updated on Disney news as it comes to light,