Just heard of this app today, via <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31264079" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31264079</a><p>Does it sound like an emergency alert? Emergency alerts look like a generic text box across my screen. That doesnt scare me.<p>The app is by design extremely time sensitive. I do think the option for kinder gentler notifications would be good. But i am pretty sympathetic to the use case here.<p>Whats really at stake here? Are alert icons now a hazard, reserved for official emergency only? There is some case to be made for that. Maybe we should try to make an official business emoji in the next unicode standard, something not already well entrenched & widely used to signify a need for notice, something extra specifically for official notice. The two dont, other than use of the alert emoji, seem all that that similar.
I have BeReal on my phone, and have never thought the notifications looked like emergency alerts. Like, it never even occurred to me. I think it's pretty clear what it is(n't).