
IOS 5 to Include Early Earthquake Warnings in Japan - digiwizard
http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/ios_5_to_include_early_earthquake_warnings_in_japan/
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Toucan
As I understand it, this is quite commonplace in Japan. According to a
Japanese colleague, phones produced by Japanese manufacturers for local sale
are legally obliged to support this feature.

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ryanisinallofus
So the headline could have easily read "Apple complies with Japanese law
requiring Earthquake Detection in Phones"

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msbarnett
Short of any evidence whatsoever that Apple was selling phones in
contravention of Japanese law, or _even that such a law exists_ , such a
headline would seem absurd.

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ryanisinallofus
It was just a reply to the parent which stated that there was a law. It was
not my own claim.

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ansy
Interesting, if a little more kitchen sink than I have come to expect from
Apple.

Maybe Apple will use this and tie it in to NOAA's National Weather Service in
the USA.

<http://www.weather.gov/view/nationalwarnings.php>

It could save a significant number of lives if a tornado, flash flood, or
forest fire was tearing through nearby.

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yock
With the availability of commercial offerings, I'd be surprised if Apple
integrated NWS warnings. They'd be negating sales of apps, which reduces not
just a vendor's revenue, but their own as well..

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ansy
Apple doesn't care one whiff about any single app's livelihood. If integrating
something improves the user experience, then it gets integrated.

iOS 5 is already taking aim at Instapaper (Reading List), the entire ToDo
category (Reminders), non-SMS messaging apps (iMessage), Zinio (Newsstand),
half the camera apps out there, and a swath of Twitter apps [1]. You can
almost bet if there is a swell of applications with similar features that
Apple will wipe them all out in the next major version of iOS.

What's one more weather app? Apple is already taking aim at them by adding
hourly forecasts to the built in weather app for iOS 5.

[1] <http://www.apple.com/ios/ios5/features.html>

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kalleboo
I'm in Japan right now, and I've found the early warning service random at
best. I'd say 50% of the time I get alerts, I actually feel the quake, and 50%
of the quakes I get have no alert.

There are quakes [that you can feel] about every other day (here in Tokyo,
they're still more frequent up in Sendai).

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kazuya
50% doesn't sound great and I wish it would be better too, but it's far better
than nothing when it's a matter of life and death.

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ltamake
Why just Japan? This could be useful in so many other countries. Even tying in
tornado or hurricane warnings for your area would be cool.

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uptown
I just finished reading '2030' by Albert Brooks and this functionality reminds
me a lot of how communication devices are described in that book. In the book
everybody has video-watches and they allow the government to instantly and
simultaneously broadcast to the entire world.

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badusername
California could use it too.

