What's to stop making the h1i+ into a 9575/extreme (sat phone) competitor?

Garmin has enough problems trying to get the thing (H1) to do what it's supposed to be doing in the first place.

If they were to add something like this, it would not be transplanted somehow onto this current H1 unit. It would be a "new" unit, complete with it's own set of glaring issues to be dealt with by Joe Consumer.

I know they can't  seem to come close to a working unit, but I am talking about if the hardware could do it - at least in theory.

Iridium hasn't updated theirs in a decade or more, and it has no gps, and no iridium certus.

I think only Garmin would know the answer to that.

In the past, Garmin has been very slow to adopt new hardware technologies. They stuck with the original (slow is an understatement) serial interface to units for a LONG time, even after USB was out and well established. In fact when they finally did adopt USB, they adopted USB 1.1, even though USB 2.x had been out for many years. Same with unit data storage. In the beginning was their proprietary "Data Card" format that again, stuck around on units for years even though the SD Card format was (again) well established. I speak from experience as I have been involved with Garmin (and Magellan) GPS for 25+ years now.

Going by this past track record, there is likely some kind of hardware limitation or omission in the H1 that would prevent what you are theorizing.

Do you mean making calls via Iridium Satellite? Garmin doesn't seem to have any plans for that, otherwise they would have implemented it long ago. There are probably hardware/software limitations with their current Iridium devices, and the phone costs for the customer wouldn't be insignificant either. I'm simply assuming that Garmin isn't interested in it (at the moment?).

Yes, I meant making calls. Thebnowbold iridium 9575bdo not use Certus, but the h1i plus does. And, as a first for the gpsmaps, it has a microphone and a speaker, and can already record voice messages etc.

What I was thinking is that Garmin probably uses somewhat standard cheapsets etc for the Iridium stuff, so, maybe it could make voice calls in theory (obviously with the spftware support and a plan for it).

Even if all the hardware was in place and there was software to support the hardware, this is not something that Garmin would do with a current unit. As I mentioned, it would be a hardware upgrade, meaning it would be a new unit which one would have to purchase. Theorizing about it is one thing. Having a working product in your hand is something entirely different. If you already owned an H1 and Garmin came up with such a device which you are theorizing about, would you spend another $1000+ dollars on it? I certainly wouldn’t, let alone be beta testing it for $1000+ dollars.

Well, the 9585/extreme is more than US$2000, and it is more weight alone than the h1i plus. So, yes, I probably would pay another 1k for an upgraded version of the h1i.

I am fully aware of the irony that I am reconsidering even buying the h1i unless Garmin pulls themselves together and actually makes a working h1i. I am not too hopeful they can even pull that together.

Seriously, would you buy a Garmin sat. phone for $2k and a phone plan,the phone would be full of bugs and then you would wait forever for them to work out the bugs and perhaps get it half way functional. 

Relax, I was asking if the hardware was there. I have no sway with Garmin. And, yes, I want them to fixvthe h1i plus pronto to make this disaster of a unit actually worthy of bringing (and buying).