Me: San Francisco, Sprint, HTC Evo<p>Amber Alert
Boulevard, CA AMBER Alert UPDATE:
LIC/6WCU986 (CA) Blue Nissan Versa 4 door<p>The phone was a pretty jarring ring w/ a red symbol/icon.<p>Granted I'm in much better shape then the victim, but I'd be interested in seeing how these Amber Alerts turn out.
I wonder how many highway accidents and fatalities are likely to have been caused by that loud shrieking sound and everyone in the state of California looking down at their phones at the exact same time.
Serious question: What are you supposed to do? Find the vehicle they describe? Run away from it? Ignore it and figure someone else will know what to do?<p>Can someone explain what this "Amber Alert" is because I have no idea and all the comments in this thread so far seem to assume everyone knows what is being discussed. Is it some sort of opt-out government alert system to help keep panic levels up between terrorist attacks?
A kid was likely abducted after their mother was murdered - the number of comments in this thread complaining about this <i>inconvenience</i> makes me lose a little hope in humanity
I also got it, it's a California state wide amber alert. iPhone 5 iOS 7 [1]. Two children were abducted after the murder of their mother in San Diego [2].<p>It looks like amber alerts were pushed out in an AT&T carrier settings update back in June [3].<p>[1] <a href="http://shutter.io/img/43sosz/raw" rel="nofollow">http://shutter.io/img/43sosz/raw</a><p>[2] <a href="http://www.google.org/publicalerts/alert?aid=9a5a45a2046760c&hl=en&gl=US&source=web" rel="nofollow">http://www.google.org/publicalerts/alert?aid=9a5a45a2046760c...</a><p>[3] <a href="http://blogs.att.net/consumerblog/story/a7790136" rel="nofollow">http://blogs.att.net/consumerblog/story/a7790136</a>
Same here. Got it on my Nexus 4 (T-Mobile) in SF.<p>I hadn't noticed this feature before either, so the first thing I did when it prompted me was to disable it, then when I thought about it for a few seconds, I realized it was actually a pretty smart/useful feature so I enabled it again. I hadn't even realized this was an android thing, but if it increases the likelihood of helping people out, I have no problem with it.
It's a really bad UI for a disruptive message that gets pushed to millions of people.<p>How many people know what amber alert is?
Of those people, how many know what to do about it?
Of those people, how many know what Nissan Versa looks like?<p>How much harder would it be to change the text to something like "Child abduction alert: if you see <car color/model/license plate> call 911" (and, perhaps, include a silhouette of the car model they are looking for)
For those interested, this is what the push notification looks like. <a href="http://cl.ly/image/2T19133Y1P22" rel="nofollow">http://cl.ly/image/2T19133Y1P22</a><p>It didn't link to anything, seems like it could be improved. This is the first one I've ever seen.
I got one of these last week in Texas. They are fairly jarring. It is nice that the amber alert website lists all active and closed alerts so you can see what all the hub-bug was about. Also, doing a google search for "amber alert" or "amber alert <state>" will give you a card at the top of the results giving you the details about the alert (the google card only shows up for active amber alerts).
I was sufficiently confused by the message in this alert that I googled "Amber California". If I could review city planning decisions I'd tell them that Boulevard is a reserved keyword and they should select another name for that town. Glad you posted this to clear up that the alert itself is amber and Boulevard is a city.<p>Also I hope they find the kids.
To change your settings in Android:
Settings: Wireless&Networks More: Cell Broadcasts<p>You have extreme threats, severe threats, and Ambers that you can turn on or off.<p>I got a severe storm warning driving through Vermont a couple weeks ago, which was handy, and just got this Amber. I'm a little mixed on whether to keep the Amber alert or not.
This was my first Amber Alert on my smartphone and frankly I found quite annoying. My iPhone squeeled loudly and vibrated waking my sleeping girlfriend. I understand two kids may be in trouble but this seems like a very inefficient use of a very large number of people's time. We were lying in bed reading and sleeping nowhere near any cars. The signs on the highway seem completely reasonable.<p>Did they really send it to every modern smartphone in California? Are we expected to be on call for the police/government at 11pm?<p>I eventually figured out how to turn it off on an iPhone[1]. The first few results on Google were non-responsive - apparently being DDOSed by the Amber Alert!<p>[1] <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6165049" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6165049</a>
FYI: The setting to turn these off are in Notifications -> Government Alerts. The piercing siren seems a little excessive for Amber alerts...and doesn't even go quiet in silent mode. It's the default option on iPhone 5 AFAIK.
Same here, it was a loud screeching noise, not what I've come to expect from my iPhone. I didn't even know phones had this ability (not an SMS or push notification). Is it just smart phones that have this capability?
I got something similar a while back for a weather alert: <a href="http://aaronparecki.com/notes/2012/12/16/2/iphone-emergency-alert-snowpocalypse" rel="nofollow">http://aaronparecki.com/notes/2012/12/16/2/iphone-emergency-...</a><p>Looking through the iPhone's notification settings there are new "AMBER Alerts" and "Emergency Alerts" settings along with all the apps.
The first time I got the alert (non-amber) it took me by surprise. Having never seen/heard of it I thought it was mistake/joke.<p>It was a flash flood alert in Las Vegas, a desert. It happened again the following day but this time a friend shared with me a pic of a flooded Caeser's Palace casino. It helped me avoid that area.