

Shortwave: iBeacon-powered messaging - siralonso
http://getshortwave.com

======
hawkharris
The app is rated "12+" in iTunes because of "Fear / horror-related themes" and
"drug and alcohol references."

This is surprising for an innocent messaging app, but then again, I've never
submitted to the App Store. Does it require that you make these disclaimers
just because users could potentially discuss the topics using your platform?

~~~
derefr
Yep. I believe Chrome is rated 17+ in the iOS store because people can visit
arbitrary websites with it.

Really, though, the app age-ratings system would work much better flipped
around. There _are_ certain apps that either have no user-generated
content/social interactions, or which restrict what user-generated
content/social interactions they _do_ have to being nonthreatening (usually by
not allowing that many degrees of freedom in expression. thatgamecompany's
Journey is a good example.)

Games that _are_ safe for kids could ask Apple to give them additional
vetting; Apple could then declare them to be explicitly "safe for children",
put them on additional "For Kids" lists, etc. Unlike the current setup, there
would be no such thing as an "adult" app--just an "unvetted" app. The parental
controls, if turned on, would prompt a parent to _independently evaluate_
unvetted apps.

~~~
bsaul
There is something called "made for children" on the app store. It's an
explicit flag that you can set on any app.

------
nanidin
See also, FireChat[0] - released a month prior to Shortwave.

[0]
[https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/firechat/id719829352?mt=8](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/firechat/id719829352?mt=8)

~~~
twodayslate
I thought that used wifi/Bluetooth rather than iBeacons.

~~~
nanidin
iBeacons is bluetooth though (you interact with them via the core bluetooth
framework)... FireChat does apparently also use wifi though since they use the
multipeer connectivity API.

------
fudgy73
Isn't "shortwave" radio used for extremely long distance communication?

~~~
Gracana
Yeah, I was disappointed to find that the name had nothing to do with the
underlying technology or the actual use-case. It's just a super-short-range
messaging app.

~~~
alexwhittemore
FWIW, "shortwave radio" is a very historical name: the 1.6-30MHz range is no
longer "short" in wavelength relative to even broadcast FM at 88 to 100, much
less cell starting at many hundreds of MHz, much much less bluetooth at 2.4
GHz. Really, I think "shortwave" applies pretty accurately given the use of
bluetooth, and considering the shorter the wavelength, the greater the
attenuation with distance.

But you're right, it's not shortwave radio. And since your cellphone doesn't
have any shortwave radio hardware on board, I'm not too bothered by that :)

------
ayhoung
we've released a similar networking app called Loopd
([http://getloopd.com](http://getloopd.com)) which also uses iBeacon
technology to let you connect with people at a social gathering, also includes
messaging, tagging, and showing context of where and when you met

~~~
Alex_The_Chan
I try to keep track of new contacts I meet in a google doc with info like
name, where I met them, what they appeared to be (manager, secretary, etc),
what they looked like... Way too much work and it's hard to look through.
Can't wait for this app to be on Android! I keep hearing good things about it
:)

~~~
ayhoung
thanks Alex! We're partnering with Evernote and Linkedin to create an even
more robust contact management system, so stay tuned!

~~~
Alex_The_Chan
Thanks for the reply! Saw you guys have a facebook group - is this the best
way to follow the progress?

------
dps
Could pick a slightly more inspiring example chat for the landing page!

~~~
bluehex
I agree it's a terrible screenshot. Without any context I have no idea what
those icon -> icon dividers mean. I guess its someone changing their icon?

------
mpg33
I thought about an app like this years ago...a proximity messaging app that
allows strangers to connect in public places that is otherwise difficult (ie.
the bus, a flight, a restaurant, sporting event). I think the smart way to do
it is to limit users identification/info to simply a photo. I visually
identified a person physically and can then message them based on the photos
of active users around me.

------
kator
Interesting, when looking at it with BLExplr I see it presents a Battery and
Current Time service. Are you using iBeacon basically just to discover nearby
devices? Pretending to be an iBeacon and then listening for your uuid to wake
up the other clients in the area?

It appears to use wifi for the chat once it finds a neighbor, are you using
the iOS multipeer API once for the actual chat conversations?

~~~
alexwhittemore
The battery and current time service I think is inherent to the iPhone, not
necessarily whatever software is running. I've seen that a lot when doing
totally unrelated BLE/iBeacon stuff. A... clever combination of CoreBluetooth
and iBeacon is used for discovery, messaging is actually handled via data
connection. We toyed with some ways to transfer data directly (multipeer and
decidedly-not-multipeer), but we haven't used those in this release.

------
tplpnm
Not to be confused with [http://shortwaveapp.com](http://shortwaveapp.com)

------
arthurcolle
hey are you thinking of open sourcing any part of the code? i can think of a
lot of further applications of this, especially relating to mesh networking

~~~
ayhoung
It's actually very simple. We've released a much more featured version of this
at [http://getloopd.com](http://getloopd.com)

~~~
jschmi93
Are you guys planning to open source any of this? I'd love to dig into this a
little deeper....

------
unicornporn
> Talk to anyone

Talk to anyone using an iPhone

------
rrbrambley
This is genius. And it shall incite scandal.

