"I took off my watch and threw it": Steven Spielberg freaked out by Apple Watch's false 'hard fall' warning

Steven Spielberg spoke at the Tribeca Film Festival, where he celebrated the 50th anniversary of his debut feature film The Sugarland Express. Apple Watch suddenly reported a "severe fall".

Here's What We Know

False alerts from Apple Watch are rare, but they can be unexpected and occur at the wrong time. In this case, a famous film director was giving a speech about his first feature film.

When the Apple Watch on his wrist lit up and beeped, signalling a "hard fall," Spielberg simply had to press "X" on the screen to cancel the signal. To continue the conversation, he took off his watch and threw it on the ground.

Without receiving any response from the owner, the Apple Watch began an audible countdown before calling the emergency services.

Spielberg quickly grabbed the watch and turned off the notification.

If the Apple Watch does not receive a response from a person who has actually fallen badly or had an accident, the watch makes one last audible attempt to get a response before calling the emergency services and the owner's primary contact from the Health App.

The Fall Detection feature first appeared in the Apple Watch Series 4 and is credited with saving people after accidents by calling for help when they were unable to respond.

Here's How It Works

False alerts can occur when Apple Watch detects that the watch is moving quickly and then suddenly stops.

There have been situations where the watch has falsely reported accidents or falls while riding a roller coaster, as well as "hard falls" or accidents while skiing. Since then, Apple has been working to reduce the number of false alerts.

Source: Variety