iEarthquake Review
:: JUST OKPrice: $1.99
Version: 2.5.4
iPhone Integration Rating:
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There's no doubting the seriousness of the last few large scale natural disasters that we've seen in the past year or so. With the situations Haiti, Chile, and most recently Japan, it's clear that people are on edge and seeking more information, and perhaps even getting a bit paranoid and worried about when or where the next major incident might be. Instead of feeding on the fear that is going to come along with that situation, i simply present the following app with the hopes that people will use the information for educational and information purposes.
iEarthquake uses information from the USGS Earthquake tracking website and GSACS.org to bring you a real-time worldwide update of earthquakes, floods, tornado and other severe weather warnings in app form. In portrait mode you'll get a list of the most recent earthquake activity, and alerts. In landscape, you'll be able to view the incidents by location on a world map. Also, you can also search for a specific location in wither to see if there are any severe alerts for a certain area in both viewing modes.
The alerts page will provide you a list of the most recent severe alerts from flooding, tornado, earthquakes and more. The free version of the app will link you directly to the reporting agencies website with the full details, while the paid app pulls this information for you, with the option to visit the site.
The other major difference between iEarthquake and the 'Lite' version is that you can share these alerts via Twitter, email or Facebook from within the app in the full version. It seems to be this is the only real upgrade difference, and that the reporting and information is similar to both.
The information, as of my test for review, was accurate and up-to-date. However there were some iTunes reviews that mentioned otherwise, especially since early March and all of the devastation in Japan.
In order to make the paid version of this app more worthwhile it would be ideal if you could set up a notification system based on location so that if there's an alert within say 100 miles, it would notify you immediately, instead of having to read all alerts, or search yourself. Without much to offer aside from the social networking integration, I should say you'd get along fine with just the Lite version.
iEarthquake Lite
FREE!
