One of the reasons why I love the App Store so much is the wide variety of available apps, we see everything from the silly and childish, to the super useful and even at times helpful. It is very true, that there is an app for just about anything. The latest app that is soon to be available in the app store falls into the helpful category and is for AMBER Alerts.
The app is being developed by Jonathan Zdziarski and is going to be the official app from amberalert.com . For those unfamiliar, the AMBER Alert system was set up to help notify authorities as well as the public when it comes to a missing child. In short this is a great system, and will be a welcomed app to have available.
Once it hits the App Store, users will be able to download it free of charge, which means that we really have no reason not to have this on our phones. Hey, its free and could possibly help to save a child, sounds like a win-win to me.
According to the official description, the app will offer;
"real-time feed of recent alerts including victim photos and information, suspect photos and descriptions, vehicle photos and descriptions, and a reporting mechanism allowing you to report a sighting.”
Also, the user will be able to send a sighting report directly from the iPhone, and it will also take advantage of the built-in GPS on the iPhone 3G. Finally, the developer is also going to release code that will allow other developers to make their applications AMBER aware.
No word on an exact release date, it is still pending approval from Apple.
[cnet via Apple iPhone Apps ]
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February 18th, 2009 at 4:27 pm
When you say “Once it hits the App Store, users will be able to download it free of charge, which means that we really have no reason to have this on our phones”, I’m guessing you really meant “we really have no reason to NOT have this on our phones”. Right?
February 18th, 2009 at 7:06 pm
Laurent, How important the word ‘not’ can be. And yes that is exactly what I was trying to say. Thanks for keeping me in check.
February 18th, 2009 at 7:29 pm
I have heard about this system before, but does it only work in the US? As in, is there any use in use in me having it in the UK?
Josh
February 19th, 2009 at 8:16 am
The UK does have a similar alert system, which you can find here. http://ukamberalert.com/
I am not sure, and was not able to find anything out yet on whether this will work in the UK. If not, hopefully we will see a similar (UK based) app also become available.