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Amber Alert? I thought we were being nuked.

Col Ronson said:
well you do know its not just amber alerts, you get government alerts too. i.e. i got a flash flood warning once. Id love to be woken up at 3am to be warned if a hurricane or tornado was heading my way, or hell an alien invasion lol.
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Separate on/off switch.

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lionqueen said:
You don't get it. As someone pointed out above, the system (crazy as this may sound to you) has no way of knowing whether you're in bed, or out late coming home from a party, or making a 2am 7-11 ice cream run. Therefore, it sends the alert out to everyone, so that it may catch the few who are out and may be able to help. Get why they send out alerts at night, now?

How often are you woken up by Amber alerts? Please, tell me. Maybe once every three months at most? Your one ****** night's sleep every three months could save a child from being raped and murdered... And yet you still whine.

Get my disgust now?
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Again, abide by silent and less people will disable it, therefore more people get the message. I think the problem is, you don't get the complaint. It's not about the alert. It's about the alert not respecting the user. If you are capable of doing something than either your phone is not silent, or you will look at your phone. By being so aggressive as to bypass volume settings it will prompt people to disable it and miss an important alert they could have actually helped with. Are you getting it now? Or just being stubborn for the sake of arguing?
 
lionqueen said:
You don't get it. As someone pointed out above, the system (crazy as this may sound to you) has no way of knowing whether you're in bed, or out late coming home from a party, or making a 2am 7-11 ice cream run. Therefore, it sends the alert out to everyone, so that it may catch the few who are out and may be able to help. Get why they send out alerts at night, now?

How often are you woken up by Amber alerts? Please, tell me. Maybe once every three months at most? Your one ****** night's sleep every three months could save a child from being raped and murdered... And yet you still whine.

Get my disgust now?
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I would imagine that the people responsible for the poor design of the system, that results in many shutting it off, have the same mindset as you.
 
burgman said:
I would imagine that the people responsible for the poor design of the system, that results in many shutting it off, have the same mindset as you.
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Dont pawn off YOUR shutting off an alert about a kidnapped child on me, or poor design. Again, youre woken up once every few months, to perhaps save a child's life. But even that's too much for you, cos you get a bad nights sleep that night.

My heart bleeds for you.
 
lionqueen said:
You don't get it. As someone pointed out above, the system (crazy as this may sound to you) has no way of knowing whether you're in bed, or out late coming home from a party, or making a 2am 7-11 ice cream run.
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Ahhh, but now that the "system" includes my iPhone as the annunciator, the "system" DOES know I am asleep because I turned on Do Not Disturb. ;)

I think the Amber alerts are a good thing, and I still have them enabled on my iPhone. But many people WILL turn it off entirely the way it now works, completely defeating its purpose 24x7 instead of just during times they are unable to react or assist.

Most would leave it ON 24x7 if it respected DND, so an iOS update that allowed that would be a net benefit to the victims involved in Amber alerts.
 
ScottW1 said:
Ahhh, but now that the "system" includes my iPhone as the annunciator, the "system" DOES know I am asleep because I turned on Do Not Disturb. ;)

I think the Amber alerts are a good thing, and I still have them enabled on my iPhone. But many people WILL turn it off entirely the way it now works, completely defeating its purpose 24x7 instead of just during times they are unable to react or assist.

Most would leave it ON 24x7 if it respected DND, so an iOS update that allowed that would be a net benefit to the victims involved in Amber alerts.
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No pint in arguing with someone that refuses to see another side of logic. They apparently jump up in the middle of the night searching out list children. Batman would be proud. For every normal human being that would like the alert when it is useful, this would be good.
 
ScottW1 said:
I think the Amber alerts are a good thing
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Amber alerts, like many things legislated out of emotion instead of critical thinking, are ineffective:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/crime/20..._let_s_get_rid_of_the_amber_alert_system.html


The overuse* of alerts makes them useless. I've turned them all off.

*In my area, it's not uncommon to get several 'flash flood' warnings in an afternoon. What this means in reality is that there might be standing water over some roads. These people have apparently never been out west and have no idea what a real flash flood is.

A.
 
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Alrescha said:
Amber alerts, like many things legislated out of emotion instead of critical thinking, are ineffective:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/crime/20..._let_s_get_rid_of_the_amber_alert_system.html


The overuse* of alerts of alerts makes them useless. I've turned them all off.

*In my area, it's not uncommon to get several 'flash flood' warnings in an afternoon. What this means in reality is that there might be standing water over some roads. These people have apparently never been out west and have no idea what a real flash flood is.

A.
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I understand your point about overuse of alerts reducing their effectiveness. But that doesn't mean that they can't be used effectively. Here in tornado alley, for example, I appreciate being awakened to tell me that there's severe weather in the vicinity, even if nothing horrible happens where I am.
 
Alrescha said:
The overuse* of alerts of alerts makes them useless. I've turned them all off.

*In my area, it's not uncommon to get several 'flash flood' warnings in an afternoon.
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Overuse? I have received exactly ONE Amber alert since the feature was enabled last June. I wouldn't call that overuse.

Again, the best option would be for Apple to allow some customization, in particular the ability to silence Amber alerts when Do Not Disturb is set.

People who have the opinion they are worthless can already turn them off, so there really isn't any reason for those folks to complain about needing a feature they already have. ;)
 
Roller said:
But that doesn't mean that they can't be used effectively.
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I quite agree, there's nothing wrong with the idea or the technology. Unfortunately my phone goes off like a fire alarm when it rains hard. In the middle of the night. That's just not tolerable; the feature gets turned off.

A.
 
cyks said:
If I'm out driving in the middle of the night and it went off, I'd likely hit a tree.

Full volume buzzing is uncalled for and, until we can change that, it's off.

Shame.
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Sounds like your competency regarding handing stressful situations while driving could be in question with an answer like that. If a truck driver honks at you while driving, are you going to swerve into on coming traffic? Please do us all a favor and surrender your driving privileges before you hurt someone.
 
Happened to me yesterday in westchester new york. Also last summer while I was taking a class it did go off. Everyone thought there was a fire drill or something. Quite ridiculous
 
Geckotek said:
In your mind, how is it poorly implemented? The time it's set off? Should we wait until everyone is awake and now the kidnapper is 500 miles away? Is it the distance from the event that bothers you? If a kidnapper takes a kid and it takes 2 hours for anyone to notice and get the alert out, that kidnapper could EASILY be 150 miles away by the time the alert is sent out.

So, tell us how you would do it differently?
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First off, try toning down the condescension. Maybe I could have used 'less than optimally' implemented rather than 'poorly.' Here's a couple of thoughts just off the top of my head.

Allow people to control whether they receive the alert with or without a tone.
Allow people the choice to have it respect DND.
Permit people to rcv them just like a text.

You see most people want to receive them. But in an environment like meetings or in the middle of the night where they have decided they have limited value to/from the alert give them the ability control how they're received. This way people are more likely to leave the alerts turned on and to be informed rather than just opt'ing out.

Don't forget these are not only Amber Alerts but also emergency alerts. This past spring I received three flash flood alerts within a span of 1.5 hours.

Amber and emergency alerts are an excellent tool for LE and EMS. This is a good first step, but how these tools are implemented can be improved.
 
tharepairguy said:
Sounds like your competency regarding handing stressful situations while driving could be in question with an answer like that. If a truck driver honks at you while driving, are you going to swerve into on coming traffic? Please do us all a favor and surrender your driving privileges before you hurt someone.
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Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't include the ":rolleyes:" or ":eek:" because I thought it was obvious I was clearly exaggerating. Thank you for reminding me that I shouldn't overestimate people.

That said, when I truck horn goes off, it comes from outside the car and there are usually visual clues for it...a giant truck, for example.

The alert (obviously) comes without warning and is played at full volume regardless of the volume the phone is set for. As many other have already stated, that can be quite jolting in the middle of the night.
 
robbie12345 said:
Happened to me yesterday in westchester new york. Also last summer while I was taking a class it did go off. Everyone thought there was a fire drill or something. Quite ridiculous
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Damn, twice in six months or so. It must be so hard to be you.
 
I ignore those stupid amber alerts. Whether it's on the freeway display or on the iPhone (turned off). It's not my job to do the police's work.
 
lionqueen said:
Dont pawn off YOUR shutting off an alert about a kidnapped child on me, or poor design. Again, youre woken up once every few months, to perhaps save a child's life. But even that's too much for you, cos you get a bad nights sleep that night.

My heart bleeds for you.
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So much drama ma'am. There is absolutely no need for the loud siren sound. Police and fireman love the siren, the rest of us not so much. That alone tells me the designers have no clue how to EFFECTIVELY involve the public.
My heart bleeds for the people around you.
 
Amber alerts doesn't do anything for me. If there was a naked lady driving next I probaly wound't notice it. I hate rubber-neckers. OTOH a Presidential Alert cannot be blocked, I wonder who is gonna use it first and will that be like a 20 tons asteroid bound for Earth! :eek:
 
Any

tharepairguy said:
While I agree they need to work on the settings for amber alerts so more people are willing to keep the option on. As a parent, getting woke up in the middle of the night is no big deal. These types of things only work if people keep the function on. There are surely people out on the roads in the middle of the night that could benefit from said alert.

To each their own I guess...
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Right. About 20% of people are out on the road at 2AM. Everyone else is sleeping. So the execution of this thing is terrible.

Not to mention 15% of the 20% of people on the road are horny drunk truckers who are busy chatting up the CB radio about what their favorite porn is.

Source : None. Made it all up.
 
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