Nope, iOS has a much better system for that that allows that stuff to be displayed by anyone.
I don?t bother myself.
I don?t put anything in mine.
The local cops do have their own number and that is much more useful than our equivalent of your 911 number. I just have it as a normal phone number but with AAA in front of it so it shows up right at the top of the contacts list.
Illegal here.
We do have a live traffic app provided by the govt that does allow you to see traffic congestion, but google maps does a much better job of traffic. The app is good for roads closed by flooding and fire etc.
Nothing. Our system does allow the authorities to send SMSs to those in areas affected by large scale emergencies, but that is entirely driven by them, it gets sent to cellphones that are logged on to particular bases etc and requires no action by individuals.
Go away. Your blatherings are not appropriate to this group, and your subjects are both useless and trivial. That some rise to the bait enabling your illness is sad, but entirely human.
That's interesting that iOS has a "system" which includes fire/police scanning.
How does that iOS method you allude to figure out which fire/police scanner to broadcast in the USA and countries that allow it?
Emergencies happen, so, it's not a bad idea to be prepared for them, ahead of time.
For example, if you see a fire threatening your only access out, you might not want to waste time *looking* for a frequency to tell you which evacuation route they're using.
Sure, if you're lucky, the police will come by ahead of time broadcasting it, and signs will be up, and everyone you ask will be informed ... but that's not always how well organized it's gonna be.
That's useful to put AAA on top, as it will save precious seconds when needed. Of course, 911 also works, when needed (but in my case, that dispatcher is 75 miles away).
It will be interesting to see how other people prepare their mobile devices for emergencies.
Wow. You can't even *listen* to radio broadcasts? And I thought *we* were oppressed!
Actually, that's a great point in that we should add a link to Google Maps for traffic congestion around our home.
It should be as simple as the Google Map link (which is huge) saved as a desktop shortcut. I'll add it to mine. Thanks for that idea.
How to add a Google Maps shortcut to your desktop
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How to create instant map shortcuts on your home screen
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As you noted, the authorities used a reverse-911 to notify every cellphone within the towers receiving area, to let people know about the evacuation.
But you can't always rely on the authorities, and, if you have cats, dogs, chickens, etc., you may need to instantly call for help - which should all be on a quick-dial mechanism in the emergency folder, IMHO, in order of 1 2
Here are the simple steps, as I tried them on my phone just now:
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(I long pressed on the desktop)
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(I selected 'shortcuts')
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(I selected *'Directions'*)
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(I entered my destination)
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(Pressing 'save' created a link)
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(It will do whatever you've set up)
If someone knows how to do the same thing on iOS, please advise so that the iOS users also benefit by having a traffic link in their emergency folder, if desired.
I didn?t mean that. I was talking about a quite different emergency, when someone finds you unconscious or incapable and needs to contact someone you have specified to tell them that you have been found unconscious or incapable to tell them you have been taken to a particular hospital etc. I meant to go back and restate that when I had finished the rest of the post but managed to forget to do that until after I had sent the post.
It doesn?t.
Yes, but I don?t need any particular way to deal with those except to put the local number for the cops that works a lot better than our equivalent of the
911 number at the top of the contacts where I need to use it to call the cops if I need to do that.
And I do, but not in the way you do that.
We don?t do it that way, like I said, our system uses SMS-CB to tell you that and that requires no specific action on your part at all except to have your phone turned on so you can receive that.
And in our case the Live Traffic app does a much better job of showing you which evacuation routes are viable with floods, bushfires etc than any frequency does.
That's why we use SMS-CB. Not perfect, because there are still a few people who don?t have cellphones and there will always be some in an emergency whose phones have got flat batterys, but a lot better than telling people by knocking on their doors. At least those who do have working phones can tell others who don?t what the SMS-CB has told them.
Yes, that's why I do it like that.
The problem with mine is that they don?t connect you directly to the local police station, they connect you to the cops 100 miles away for some reason.
Surprisingly few have commented yet.
You can't listen to the communication between those crews. Those arent broadcasts.
Nothing to do with oppression.
You arent allowed to listen in to other people's cellphone conversations either, although that isnt even possible now the entire system is GSM/LTE. It was possible with the original AMPS system.
Its not a reverse 911, its SMS-CB, a variant of SMS.
You wont get it here with those except when you call your neighbours etc.
The iOS contacts system does allow an emergency category in the contacts.
It also allows you to list those you want to be called if say you are found unconscious or incapable and that is visible on the lock screen of your idevice so anyone can get those details from there as long as your phone is still working.
Well, for "my emergency use" I put a contact name that's basically somethin g like "0_If Found Call". I'm hoping if a nice person found my phone, they might look at the contacts. You could always call one like Home or mom or something. I just made it easier.
I have an app, that if I TXT a message with a certain subject to my phone, the ring volume raises to max. This is so i can do the locate thing by cal ling it. My phone has a few hiding places it likes. Side of the car seat, bed, side of a chair. I try to only put the phone in specific spaces like sid eof t he bed (charging), Living room couch (charging), and on top of a TV.
So, the most important thing is for me to be able to find my phone.
I do need to add the police non-emergency number like a tree down in a road in my contacts list and I do need to back-up my SIM card. I have a specif ic device that can do that.
I have a very early Android device that's practically useless.
The number of posts in a thread is absolutely meaningless.
In most threads, most of the comments are unhelpful noise anyway, so, one or two good technical accurate responses is about all *any* thread could hope for in the best of curcumstances.
To that end, I *try* (but sometimes fail) to make "my" posts packed with as much value as I can pack into them, so that all benefit from the conversation.
I also almost always *try* the suggestions proposed, if they are reasonable, and if they fit the circumstances.
Based on taking up all suggestions in this thread, what we have together developed, so far, is this emergency folder capability:
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a. Local 911 (if applicable in your area) b. CHP 911 c. Evacuation Route Traffic d. Police/Fire Scanner (if legal in your area) e. ?
In addition, I'm working on a button to send out an alert SMS to the family that also sends the GPS coordinates.
For example, this emergencySMS app "says" it will send out a pre-recorded text to three people at the touch of a button:
- Emergency SMS By DASTIS Communication =
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This Emergency reverse-SMS app "says" it will alert you by sound (even if the phone is on silent or vibrate) if you receive a text from someone using a pre-defined code word:
- TeXTe - Emergency SMS by Curly Y. =
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This emergency 911-related SMS app "says" it will alert your family any time you call 911:
- 911HelpSMS ( 911 Help SMS ) By Safety Now Solutions =
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This Emergency SMS app "says" it will alert people with a pre-recorded message and your GPS location when you press the sleep button a few times
- Emergency Alert By xAnkle =
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This alert app "says" it will alert by phone or email with your GPS location on a map snapshot along with a pre-recorded message:
- Emergency Button By Andluck =
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etc.
As always, there is so much good freeware out there that the "price" is the testing to find the best ones - which is why I *asked* what *you* put in
The difference between you and me is that I try to be helpful (which takes effort on my part).
I wouldn't normally even respond to your supremely unhelpful post above, but I do have one thing to say regarding the emergency contact setup that I just tried, after testing out *all* the suggestions people made:
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The fact that we can change the *name* of *any* app whatsoever could be helpful, in an emergency context, since we can remove the "brand" name of the app, and just list what function it has for emergency purposes.
Just by way of example, you'll notice in the latter screenshot above that I changed the pre-installed "Messages" app to read "sns/mms" (sic), [which I have just now updated to "sms/mms", after noticing the typo in that screenshot).
The point is that we can change *any* app name we want, which is useful in an emergency folder, becuase the brand name isn't going to be instantly recognized, since we use it so little - but the FUNCTIONALITY (as always) is paramount ...
*So we can name the Emergency app by its FUNCTIONALITY!*
By way of example, I just changed the pre-installed YouTube app name to "old youtube" because it's an older version that doesn't do advertisements, and I changed VLC to "vlc player" just to test if I was able to change the name of both pre-installed and post-installed apps.
Turns out it's really easy to remove those silly brand names to change the name of the app to something that makes sense to you. Just long press on the app icon, and you can change the name to anything you want.
This ability to name any existing app what *you* want to name it is very useful for an emergency folder, where brand names are meaningless, and where the *functionality* of the app is paramount.
You can even named the emergency apps "1" "2" "3", etc., so that you can just press them quickly in an emergency.
Whatever you name them is totally up to you, but this capability to edit the app name no matter what the app is, will give the emergency folder a
*consistency* which can save time in an emergency since you can name them "do this first" or "call police and fire" or whatever you want to name the apps, even if they're apps from the app store.
See this screenshot for the summary of how to change the name of any app on an unrooted Android device (I'm on Android 4.3, Nova free launcher).
I generally tackle all problems on both iOS and Android, particularly for emergencies, because you'll never know what you will have in your hands at the time of an emergency.
On iOS 9.x, when I open contacts and search for "ice" or for "emergency", I get nothing (not surprisingly, because I never set up anything).
Looking about in iOS contacts, I don't see any overt mention of an "emergency" system.
Googling, I find this article:
3 Features You Should Enable in iOS 8
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In that article, they talk about a "Health" app that Apple supplied in iOS
8, which doesn't seem to be on my device in iOS9 (I skipped iOS 8 altogether since I update the device as little as possible since all hell broke loose outside the walled garden the penultimate time I updated).
Hmmmm... no "Health" app on this iPad. I only have one desktop screen, and there's no health app on it, nor in Settings General on the left column.
So, scratch that method (maybe it works only on phones?).
Moving on to another reference, I find this:
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How to Add ICE (In Case of Emergency) Contacts for iPhone
Contacts > + > First = ICE 1 - Wife
Copy that to "Last" name also (if contacts are reverse sorted).
Company = Patty Winter, wife
Scroll down to "add field"
The article says scroll to the bottom of the popup to add "notes" but I don't see any notes. I just see:
- Prefix
- Phonetic first name
- Pronunciation first name
- Middle name
- Phonetic middle name
- Phonetic last name
- Pronunciation last name
- Maiden name
- Suffix
- Nickname
- Job title
- Department
So I put the phone number in the Company field instead (since there were no notes fields).
Press "Done".
Hmmm... I guess adding ICE is better than doing absolutely nothing, but it's not much better than doing absolutely nothing.
Rod, can you elucidate a little bit on what you were alluding to when you mentioned there was some kind of emergency mechanism on iOS?
Thanks! NOTE: iPad, with SIM data, iOS 9.3.2 (and staying on that until/unless there is a compelling reason to risk another release)
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