iPhone 5 to include Japanese earthquake warning system The Japanese version of iOS 5, Apple's latest mobile OS, will let you know if an earthquake is coming a good minute or two before it hits. Such functionality is common in natively produced handsets, but imported brands have been slow to integrate the warnings which use a standardised tone and go off even if the phone has been …
Earthquake and tsunami warning systems apps abound for most platforms in Japan.
Here is an example of its sophistication:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQVPfQu50yY
It is lifesaving if you watched any videos during the Mar11 you would have seen the incoming sound warnings linked to public systems and people acting fast on it. You can hear it in the background here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHA-xVhcN3o
Android phones have 57% market share in Japan and have had these apps well before the Mar11 earthquakes.
So, an iPhone app is well and truly playing catchup ...
Actually, probably iPhone, too, but I haven't checked. The free app I downloaded for my Android phone is called Namazu Alert. It means catfish in Japan, and the name is from a legend about earthquakes being caused by a giant catfish underground. It works moderately well, though I don't actually regard it as that useful.
The fundamental problem is that if an earthquake is far enough away to give you much warning time, then it won't be that strong when it reaches you. The massive earthquake on March 11 only swayed our building a bit. If the earthquake is close enough to hurt you, then you'll be lucky to get more than a few seconds of warning. In summary, I've received a few big alerts in the months that I've had it, but they weren't bad at my actual location--but I haven't yet decided to uninstall it.
... apps can't listen for SMSs because apps have no access to your SMS stream, Apple's decision being that customers don't want that and Apple's app store being such that they can block any applications that go through unofficial channels.
However, apps can listen for a message from an external server without being active and in the foreground, that being how things like Skype work. There are some restrictions on that which I won't bore you with in detail, but generally speaking you give app-by-app permission to alert you to notifications pushed by an external server and Apple will allow your app to respond if it fits into a permitted use case. Otherwise you just get the notification on screen, possibly with a sound effect, and the app doesn't get any CPU time whatsoever unless the user allows it.
I guess because your question leads to a discussion of the walled garden it was unfairly mistaken for a troll.
It has less to do with being a walled garden and more to do with lack of the appropriate system triggers to permit it. Android apps can install an intent listener which is invoked by an SMS received event. If the listener decides to it can then launch an activity or do what it likes.I assumed Apple would provide likewise but apparently not. Perhaps this framework is what iOS 5 will provide.
If you want to see how much warning you would have got between the p- and s- waves in Tokyo, 376 kms from the epicentre of the 8.9 quake in March, look here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rU1bYspMyQw
It's not much, but it might save your life.
As with everything in earthquakes, the further you are from the epicentre the better, on the whole.
Foreign phone makers were slow to implement this and other Japan-centric feature because Japanese operators and government officials hate dealing with foreign companies. This was the main reason (for example) that Nokia weren't able to compete, even though they had the tech (compared to native Japanese phones at least, many of which still run Symbian) and were eager to deploy it. Apple delivers more clout. They were more confident and more brash in establishing themselves in a xenophobic market.
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