4 ms·

People are actually angry over this? If you are sleeping put your phone on silent or do not disturb. If you aren't how inconvenient is one text message?

nickmain 13y ago
It wasn't a normal "ding!" text message - it was sirens and all-hell-breaking-loose.
- hitsurume 13y ago
  Yea, me and my roommate were completely confused to why our phones went off. Not only that once you close the alert you can't find ANY history of it or the message that was displayed. Needs to be a better system for this.
  - rallison 13y ago
    At least on Android, you can go to Messaging, open the bottom right menu, then tap "Cell broadcasts."
- nexox 13y ago
  Yep, these kept going off on the (crowded) train this morning, and I thought they were some sort of fire alarm. It didn't help that everyone assumed the noise was not coming from their phone (because they'd never heard it before or found a configuration page for it,) so they mostly just let it go off while looking around for the source. The whole ride was more than a bit surreal.
  - hackinthebochs 13y ago
    That sounds intense. Maybe this was one mass psychological experiment.
jdcarter 13y ago
I have my iPhone set to do-not-disturb, yet a couple months ago in Colorado I received an Amber Alert, and it made plenty of noise regardless of my settings. The frustrating part is the lack of contextual info in the alert message. Mine said something about a car and its color, but nothing about the abducted child, area where he/she went missing from, etc.. It simply wasn't enough info to be useful to anyone.
rco8786 13y ago
Angry is pretty strong. But I am one of the ones this happened to and let me tell you, it was not pleasant. The alert was more like "oh shit take cover in a bomb shelter" than "hey, be on the lookout for this". Not to mention that after the initial alarm that gave practically no information the whole thing disappeared. If you're gonna send out an alert as disturbing as that one, at least include some relevant information.
j_baker 13y ago
I want emergency notifications to wake me up. When the message came out, my phone made the exact same noise you hear for emergency broadcasts. I expected my phone to give me a message regarding a storm or a coming earthquake, but I instead got a pointless amber alert. This is a great way to destroy the credibility of our emergency alert system.
- k-mcgrady 13y ago
  >> "but I instead got a pointless amber alert" That sounds like the real issue here then. I'm sure there are others like you who found it useless but quite a lot of people who think it's a great idea. They need to offer a few on/of switches in the settings for types of alert (weather, terrorism, amber alert etc.).
  - baddox 13y ago
    If you're somewhere where a loud notification will irritate you, it's highly unlikely that you will be in a position to spot a vehicle that might be carrying an abducted child.
    - betterunix 13y ago
      A loud notification would irritate me if I were driving (the best position to spot a vehicle), and might even cause an accident.
jjindev 13y ago
This was full on alarm and blinking lights on my old Android Droid X. About 30x the sound volume of a text message. It only woke me up, but I wondered how smart they were. I mean, someone driving might have been shocked into an accident. The cost-benefit of a really loud system might be more cost.
rtkwe 13y ago
These _emergency_ notifications like alarm clocks don't respect silent or do not disturb. It's also that most people haven't experienced it before which adds to the annoyance of being woken up in the middle of the night by the jarring noise. It's really not surprising that people aren't thrilled about it.

nickmain 13y ago

It wasn't a normal "ding!" text message - it was sirens and all-hell-breaking-loose.

hitsurume 13y ago
Yea, me and my roommate were completely confused to why our phones went off. Not only that once you close the alert you can't find ANY history of it or the message that was displayed. Needs to be a better system for this.
- rallison 13y ago
  At least on Android, you can go to Messaging, open the bottom right menu, then tap "Cell broadcasts."
nexox 13y ago
Yep, these kept going off on the (crowded) train this morning, and I thought they were some sort of fire alarm. It didn't help that everyone assumed the noise was not coming from their phone (because they'd never heard it before or found a configuration page for it,) so they mostly just let it go off while looking around for the source. The whole ride was more than a bit surreal.
- hackinthebochs 13y ago
  That sounds intense. Maybe this was one mass psychological experiment.

jdcarter 13y ago

I have my iPhone set to do-not-disturb, yet a couple months ago in Colorado I received an Amber Alert, and it made plenty of noise regardless of my settings. The frustrating part is the lack of contextual info in the alert message. Mine said something about a car and its color, but nothing about the abducted child, area where he/she went missing from, etc.. It simply wasn't enough info to be useful to anyone.

rco8786 13y ago

Angry is pretty strong. But I am one of the ones this happened to and let me tell you, it was not pleasant. The alert was more like "oh shit take cover in a bomb shelter" than "hey, be on the lookout for this". Not to mention that after the initial alarm that gave practically no information the whole thing disappeared. If you're gonna send out an alert as disturbing as that one, at least include some relevant information.

j_baker 13y ago

I want emergency notifications to wake me up. When the message came out, my phone made the exact same noise you hear for emergency broadcasts. I expected my phone to give me a message regarding a storm or a coming earthquake, but I instead got a pointless amber alert. This is a great way to destroy the credibility of our emergency alert system.

k-mcgrady 13y ago
>> "but I instead got a pointless amber alert" That sounds like the real issue here then. I'm sure there are others like you who found it useless but quite a lot of people who think it's a great idea. They need to offer a few on/of switches in the settings for types of alert (weather, terrorism, amber alert etc.).
- baddox 13y ago
  If you're somewhere where a loud notification will irritate you, it's highly unlikely that you will be in a position to spot a vehicle that might be carrying an abducted child.
  - betterunix 13y ago
    A loud notification would irritate me if I were driving (the best position to spot a vehicle), and might even cause an accident.

jjindev 13y ago

This was full on alarm and blinking lights on my old Android Droid X. About 30x the sound volume of a text message. It only woke me up, but I wondered how smart they were. I mean, someone driving might have been shocked into an accident. The cost-benefit of a really loud system might be more cost.

rtkwe 13y ago

These _emergency_ notifications like alarm clocks don't respect silent or do not disturb. It's also that most people haven't experienced it before which adds to the annoyance of being woken up in the middle of the night by the jarring noise. It's really not surprising that people aren't thrilled about it.