Annoying Emergency Alerts

[Behshad]

OK so AT&T now has added this emergency alert function to iPhone 5 and iPhone 4s, but why wouldnt they allow us to customize it just like the rest of the notification apps ?
There is only an ON or OFF option. I dont wanna turn it off completely, but it would be nice to have the sound option cause the gosh darn alert sound is very annoying!


/vent :biggrin:

 

[Chris Kerrigan]

The first time I received an emergency alert it damn near scared me to death. VERY loud and obnoxious, but I'm sure it's designed to be just that.

But I agree, the ability to change how exactly you receive the notification would be nice.

 

[kch50428]

Turn off the non-presidential alerts... then find an app that delivers the other alerts that you can customize to your liking. Those apps exist...

 

[John Yester]

IMO National standard's for these alerts are a good idea.

It's just like a EMA alert on your TV. You can not remove it or choose to disable it it..

 

[Just_Me_D]

IMO National standard's for these alerts are a good idea.

It's just like a EMA alert on your TV. You can not remove it or choose to disable it it..

Exactly! Besides, you won't receive many of them, and when you do, the audible alert is designed to get your attention to an emergency situation that could be life-threatening.

 

[l.i bruce fan]

Exactly! Besides, you won't receive many of them, and when you do, the audible alert is designed to get your attention to an emergency situation that could be life-threatening.

Very true, but yesterday we received an Emergency Alert for flooding conditions an hour after the alert ended...

 

[Just_Me_D]

Very true, but yesterday we received an Emergency Alert for flooding conditions an hour after the alert ended...

Somebody wasn't doing their job in a timely manner, huh....

 

[Behshad]

THIS ^^^^^^
Or the Amber alert I got this morning on my way to work. 4 hours away from me ! lol
Again Im not against the system, but wish we would have different options for the sound.

 

[Chris Kerrigan]

Very true, but yesterday we received an Emergency Alert for flooding conditions an hour after the alert ended...

Last week I received a weather alert for a town that's at least an hour from here. Seems to be a little janky at times, but still a good system nonetheless.


Sent from my iPhone 5

 

[anon(4698833)]

Here's the beauty of the alerts...they are in a text format, and amber alerts (as research has shown) are most effective in the slowing or stopping the movement of the parties involved and the child who the amber alert reflects. Again...a TEXT format notification while you are driving. Now here you are, driving down the road and you get the amber alert (or severe weather alert, or whatever government alert is sent out), and Johnny Law is there beside/behind/around you and sees you look down at your phone...OH SNAP! He's TEXTING!

Blue lights on...badda bing, your word against his. There are pieces of the law that exempt people who are "responding to an emergency", which any good lawyer could argue for you and win...but the percentage of people who lawyer up for traffic citations is very low (and that is why so many ridiculous tickets are written, just FYI).

Seems to me like the best option for these things is to just be turned off...especially at 2am, when they send you an amber alert for a child that was abducted some 5 hours away going in the total opposite direction of where you live. Who needs good sleep anyways?

 

[Behshad]

Here's the beauty of the alerts...they are in a text format, and amber alerts (as research has shown) are most effective in the slowing or stopping the movement of the parties involved and the child who the amber alert reflects. Again...a TEXT format notification while you are driving. Now here you are, driving down the road and you get the amber alert (or severe weather alert, or whatever government alert is sent out), and Johnny Law is there beside/behind/around you and sees you look down at your phone...OH SNAP! He's TEXTING!

Blue lights on...badda bing, your word against his.

Seems to me like the best option for these things is to just be turned off...especially at 2am, when they send you an amber alert for a child that was abducted some 5 hours away going in the total opposite direction of where you live. Who needs good sleep anyways?

 

[Fausty82]

Here's the beauty of the alerts...they are in a text format, and amber alerts (as research has shown) are most effective in the slowing or stopping the movement of the parties involved and the child who the amber alert reflects. Again...a TEXT format notification while you are driving. Now here you are, driving down the road and you get the amber alert (or severe weather alert, or whatever government alert is sent out), and Johnny Law is there beside/behind/around you and sees you look down at your phone...OH SNAP! He's TEXTING!

Blue lights on...badda bing, your word against his. There are pieces of the law that exempt people who are "responding to an emergency", which any good lawyer could argue for you and win...but the percentage of people who lawyer up for traffic citations is very low (and that is why so many ridiculous tickets are written, just FYI).

Seems to me like the best option for these things is to just be turned off...especially at 2am, when they send you an amber alert for a child that was abducted some 5 hours away going in the total opposite direction of where you live. Who needs good sleep anyways?

That works for everything except the warning issued from our benevolent and gracious leader, BHO. As in everything he does, he thinks his opinion and way of life is above the needs and requirements of all of us mere peasants.

And yeah, that was half sarcastic and the other half was critical. Just "don't taze me, man".

 

[sting7k]

OK so AT&T now has added this emergency alert function to iPhone 5 and iPhone 4s, but why wouldnt they allow us to customize it just like the rest of the notification apps ?
There is only an ON or OFF option. I dont wanna turn it off completely, but it would be nice to have the sound option cause the gosh darn alert sound is very annoying!


/vent :biggrin:

That's the point of the emergency alert system. TV's don't have an option to turn it off. I can't turn it off on SiriusXM either.

 

[scorpiodsu]

Ah, it's not that big a deal for alerts that are few and far between for information that may be critical to your or love ones life or survival. Now if you're getting them for areas not near where you live, then I'm sure there a perfectly good reason for that. Certain alerts most likely cover a certain radius and you still fall within that. If there's tornado warning in the Maryland Eastern Shore area, we still get the alert in many parts of Delaware. Even though it could be a good distance away, it still could impact you.

 

[anon(4698833)]

Ah, it's not that big a deal for alerts that are few and far between for information that may be critical to your or love ones life or survival. Now if you're getting them for areas not near where you live, then I'm sure there a perfectly good reason for that. Certain alerts most likely cover a certain radius and you still fall within that. If there's tornado warning in the Maryland Eastern Shore area, we still get the alert in many parts of Delaware. Even though it could be a good distance away, it still could impact you.

There's a pretty significant difference between a Tornado Warning with a very large radius covered and an Amber Alert that has information about a child abduction 5-6 hours away that has no relevance to you at all. With this system its ALL or none, the Amber Alerts are sometimes announced generically for "Georgia"...as far as I know at my time working with FEMA, it can be even further generalized to "SouthEast" or selected state regions. That is silly to get notified on your phone about. A setting that would adjust the alerts off or selectively off at certain times on the device would be better...at 2am in my bed, an Amber Alert is about as useful as telling me milk is on sale at Walmart.

Thankfully they can be completely turned off.

 

[Behshad]

That's the point of the emergency alert system. TV's don't have an option to turn it off. I can't turn it off on SiriusXM either.

Thanks for that info Captain Obvious. In this case you actually CAN turn both alerts OFF. What I wish they would allow us to do is simply be able to choose the kind of chime or tone when the alert pops on the screen! Thanks again

 

[Jaguarr40]

IMO National standard's for these alerts are a good idea.

It's just like a EMA alert on your TV. You can not remove it or choose to disable it it..

Agreed and it is meant to bring attention....That is why they are called Emergency Alerts. They, Apple and the National Standards don't want them to be anything other than how they are set up.

 

[taguluchi]

IMO National standard's for these alerts are a good idea.

It's just like a EMA alert on your TV. You can not remove it or choose to disable it it..

I like how it's loud when your driving and have the music cranked up you can still be aware of it like two weeks ago the tornado we had in Michigan which we don't have a lot of them, I definitely like it

 

[Massie]

I have to say, it's fine for people who know how to turn them off, BUT a large majority of iPhone users in my area are...how do I put this...not very technologically advanced, and are often not even sure how you turn off the ringer. So today we had some rain--nothing that crazy, but there was a flash flood watch that sent out THREE alerts in a very short time. I happened to be in a local shopping center at the time, and literally dozens of iPhones all around me were blaring the alert sound from inside purses and pockets. And since AT&T only recently enabled these, many of the people seemed to have no idea what was happening.

Long story short: a system that is supposed to help instead only created mild panic and chaos.

I don't mind the idea (I turned off weather alerts but kept Amber Alerts on) but there needs to be better public education/awareness of the system and/or a more considered approach to what events actually warrant a carrier alert. Otherwise it will only create the car-alarm effect, where they become so commonplace that they become ignored.

 

[Eileen89]

These alerts aren't annoying to me at all, as I keep them turned off.