Geoff, After having a number of tornado and flash flood warnings yesterday and not receiving any alert from Imap Weather Radio, I requested a refund from the iTUnes store. Now I did feel a tad guilty because I did get a note from someone named Matthew who was interested in how to make the app even more accessible (not that it is much of an issue as is), but I had shared some ideas. I suspect I won't hear back from him after sharing my disappointment over the alerts. I thought this would be a really useful app and I don't have a problem spending the money if it would meet my needs. However, I had the radio sitting here and got all matter of alerts via the tones that are generated when the emergency broadcast system is issuing alerts, but no alert from the app and I had everything setup properly. So, if this issue is addressed, I would reconsider, but I'd rather spend the $30 for a stand-alone radio that does the job and get the alert, then spend $10 and never hear the alert until the house is caving in on me. :) Overall the app is accessible and the quality of the recordings are very good. I also will say the responsiveness of the customer service folks is very good as well.
On Apr 29, 2011, at 2:49 PM, Geoff Waaler wrote: > Greetings y'all, > > > I was going to write Sarai off list to express appreciation for her excellent > review and thanksgiving that she got through the recent turbulence that > recently reigned supreme here in the SouthEastern United States. > > I started asking so many follow-up questions, however that I changed my mind > and decided that others might be able to contribute to and benefit from the > discussion, so here goes. > > If IMAP WeatherRadio indeed gives a loud and timely warning I believe it's > worth the cost. So far either the conditions in my area lacked sufficient > importance to trigger a major alarm, or the sound emitted would never awaken > me from a deep sleep. Yesterday our region got several tornado watches which > were extended several times. I saw an alert from ImapWeatherRadio, but if > there was any sound at all it was the two tone beep that accompanies a push > notification, tipicle of what my phone emits when the FoxNews app sends a > "breaking news" alert, or when AtBat11 informs me that the Cubs lost again. > I usually sleep right through those! I went into settings -> Notifications > and confirmed that both sounds and alerts are enabled for WeatherRadio. > Perhaps there needs to be an actual warning in order to receive a loud alert? > I also observed that this app inserts an entry into settings, which is now > empty, so perhaps they intend add the option of configuring different sounds > in a future update. > > When this app was first discussed, it was stated that one could read text of > the conditions and forecast without having to activate ImapWeatherRadio's > audio. So far I have not determined how to accomplish this. The IMap dialog > seemed to be the most applicable place to look, but none of the visible > buttons (play, refreshmap, unlabeled, or Map's time stamp)) appear to cause > the app to convey the text portion in a vo accessible manner. > I also tried double tapping an area on the screen where I presume the map is > displayed, but that only presented the "Map settings" dialog. This is hardly > a deal breaker for me, but the earlier discussion has me thinking I must be > missing something obvious. > > TIA and best regards. > Geoff > > > On Apr 28, 2011, at 7:48 PM, Sarai Bucciarelli wrote: > >> Hi all: >> I've received questions about the above application, so thought I'd write a >> review of the application. Unfortunately, I had use of it yesterday. I'm >> running an iPhone 4, iOS 4.3. >> Imap Weather Radio is an accessible weather radio application, which can be >> configured to alert you to any weather event of your choosing. It wil use >> your GPS to send alerts where ever you are. You can also set the app to >> alert for 5 locations based on zip, city, state, airport code, etc. Unlike >> other radio apps which happen to have weather radio stations, Imap wakes up >> your iOS device, sounds an alarm, and will send audio, and text alerts. From >> experience, it works, and will send the alerts at the same time as a Midland >> NOA Weather Radio. Fortunately, there isn't a delay in notifications, wich >> was one of my concerns with push notification. It was comforting to have >> this application when I lost all power due to yesterday's storms. The app >> does activate location tracking, and surprisingly, it doesn't cause to much >> of a battery drain. Last night, I had Imap, as well as several other apps >> pushing data pretty hard to my phone. At 5 P.M, I unplugged the phone at >> 100% battery power. Around 10 P.M. I was down to 49%; that was with a >> constant stream of data being pushed. Today, I started at 82% at 8 A.M. and >> I was at 70 >> % at 6 P.M. This was on a calm day with normal phone use. Not bad, IMO. The >> app is definitely worth the $9.95. >> I hope this review helps. >> >> >> Sarai Bucciarelli >> Personal to win Amazon and other free gift cards, Come join me on >> www.swagbucks.com/refer/sdbuccia >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "MacVisionaries" group. >> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to >> [email protected]. >> For more options, visit this group at >> http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en. >> > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "MacVisionaries" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en.
