Cook has said in the past that he receives letters from customers whose lives, or the lives of relatives, have been spared by Apple’s timepiece. But things got a little too close to home when his father, while alive, took a tumble setting off the Apple Watch’s fall detection feature. On the Apple Watch, this lifesaving tool detects when an Apple Watch user has sustained a significant fall. If the user doesn’t respond to an alert quickly, the device assumes that the user is incapacitated and emergency help is summoned.
Besides calling for help and including the location of the Apple Watch owner, the latter’s emergency contacts are also notified. This is what happened with Tim Cook‘s dad and when emergency services arrived after being called by his Apple Watch, Cook’s father didn’t respond to the paramedics knocking at his door. Tim Cook explained what happened next: “He didn’t respond to the door, so they kicked the door down — and it was a good thing they did because he was not conscious at the time,” Apple’s CEO stated.
Cook explained to the hosts that the accelerometer in the Apple Watch is used to detect a fall. The executive went on to explain that his father didn’t thank Tim for the fall detection feature on the Apple Watch that saved his life. Instead, he was more upset at the damage caused by the first responders who were forced to kick the door in. Laughing at the memory, Cook told Jessie and Lennie Ware, “No, he was focused on the door, to be honest. He was more upset, ‘They kicked out my door!'”
In one interesting part of the conversation, the hosts noted that Cook’s Apple Watch seemed to receive several notifications during the interview. Apple’s CEO admits that he will turn off notifications on his Apple Watch at night if he’s sleeping with the watch.
