I was in my car in St. Paul at the time when the message went out. I heard the alarm and assumed that it was an Amber alert. When I got to the next stop light I glanced at my phone and saw two messages. One telling me to shelter in place (why?) and the next saying that the suspect was apprehended.
This was completely useless and actually distracting considering that I was in heavy traffic at the time.
When an amber alert pops up, what happens 100% of the time is I'm like "holy shit wtf stop that loud noise!" and then after the message is dismissed and untrievable I try to read it, resulting in me having no idea what it said.
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.
From the article, it's not clear this ever went out as a wireless AMBER alert, just to people subscribed to an email alert system. The wireless alerts and highway signage are part of the secondary distribution system, so might not have actually been triggered.
I had a nearly disastrous event with the Amber Alerts on the iPhone--
a few years back, I was traveling at 70mph down the 55, heavy traffic, iPhone paired via bluetooth to my car. I was listening to music I think at a low volume.
Then, a sound as loud as an earthquake shook the car. I was beyond terrified. I jerked the steering wheel from the startle reflex and very nearly hit the divider.
It was of course, an Amber Alert, and an irresponsible one at that. I say that because it was for a county 300 miles north of where I was.
I don't know if it is still this way-- but the Amber Alerts used to play at full volume no matter what the phones settings are.
I am unsure of the wisdom of potentially startling every human being within a few hundred miles, at basically the same time.
To be honest, that exact alert is what made me turn amber alerts off in Android.. I live so far from Charlotte that there is no way it might be relevant..
I have amber alerts disabled because I can't imagine recognising someone driving around, with everything else going on in life.
I have only heard the emergency broadcast system for real in the '89 bay area quake (I've heard tests many times). But I understand it's used frequently (legitimately) in tornado-prone areas.
"Amber alert" itself is mostly just a PSA that a child has goe missing. What people are discussing is that most smartphones have a way to have emergency messages (such as this) broadcasted and displayed prominently. In this case, all its asking you to do is Keep an eye out for the vehicle. Report if found.
I have a nexus 4, and I can disable none, some or all of alerts. They're useful though. Among amber alerts, it can warn you about terrorist attacks, earthquakes/tsunamis/other natural disaster, etc.
This was my first Amber Alert on my smartphone and frankly I found quite annoying. My iPhone squeeled loudly and vibrated waking my sleeping girlfriend. I understand two kids may be in trouble but this seems like a very inefficient use of a very large number of people's time. We were lying in bed reading and sleeping nowhere near any cars. The signs on the highway seem completely reasonable.
Did they really send it to every modern smartphone in California? Are we expected to be on call for the police/government at 11pm?
I eventually figured out how to turn it off on an iPhone[1]. The first few results on Google were non-responsive - apparently being DDOSed by the Amber Alert!
Do you still appreciate the police warnings knowing you only get them because a group of people saw one and started fiddling with their phones, probably while driving, to let the app know?
Serious question: What are you supposed to do? Find the vehicle they describe? Run away from it? Ignore it and figure someone else will know what to do?
Can someone explain what this "Amber Alert" is because I have no idea and all the comments in this thread so far seem to assume everyone knows what is being discussed. Is it some sort of opt-out government alert system to help keep panic levels up between terrorist attacks?
I've got to say that my experience with Amber Alerts is strongly negative.
For a while they were triggering various alerts (including EBS interruptions on radio and TV), with a frequency that lead me to strongly discount such warnings.
Emergencies should be reserved for circumstances in which the recipient of a message can and should take immediate action. An alert is just that: an advisory. Run these was an item in normal newscasts, or in advisory systems (including if you absolutely must, highway signage). But not distracting people.
The fact that, at least in my recollection, a huge number of Amber Alerts appear to involve immediate family / partner situations (boyfriend/girlfriend, other parent, husband/wife, modulo estrangement). Most seem to resolve reasonably well. And I'm not sure that a full-on aggressive response benefits the situation. Again, that's a recollection and personal perception. But overall, I'm underimpressed by the system.
This seems to have improved somewhat in more recent years.
Same thing happened to me a few years ago. I have a giant subwoofer sound system in my car and usually play music loud on the freeway. That alert scared the hell out of me. Easily could have caused an accident!
And yet, at least once, the alert on the phone specifically (rather than a newscast or highway signage) appears to have saved at least one life[0]. Of course, we don't know what would have happened, and it did wake up the whole state, too. But I think the argument in favor is that the probability of success for these searches decreases quickly with time, so there is substantial value in getting word out quickly.
Yeah I have Amber alerts turned off. I guess other alerts are still on on my iPhone which is probably as close to a government alerting system as you're going to get.
This was completely useless and actually distracting considering that I was in heavy traffic at the time.
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