Why Weather Advisories may come later

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You may have noticed that we send out Environment Canada's "Weather Advisories" a few minutes after other services. There's a very good reason for this; when "Weather Advisories" are first issued, they're blank;

"Weather advisory in effect. Please continue to monitor alerts and forecasts issued by Environment Canada.

We feel this is a waste of your time as you have to wait for roughly 2-5 minutes for any details to show up and therefore, we ignore any blank "Weather Advisories" and instead, send them out the instant they're updated with details.

This is specifically for "Advisories" as "Statements", "Watches", and "Warnings" have detailed descriptions immediately upon being issued and we send those out instantly.

Hope that makes sense and we may add this as a settings option for those who want to wait around for a few minutes refreshing their app until details come out. 😀

Adam

Please update to Version 465

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Version 1.0.465 is available for both Android and iOS. It has important improvements for notifications. This includes fixing the issue with the bells turning off.

‪Please visit the App Store or Google Play Store to update it by searching for ‘Instant Weather’.‬

Thanks

Teresa

App-update.jpg

Coming soon - Version 465

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COMING SOON: Big notification improvements are completed and tested! Once you get version 465, there should be no further green bell issues!

Internal testing of version 465 has yielded amazing results! We've submitted 465 for review on Apple (which usually takes a couple days) and it'll be available shortly for beta testers of Android. If all goes well on Android, it'll be pushed to production later today or tomorrow.

Woohoo!!!

Adam

Help us to help you

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Whether you are posting to the Facebook group or sending us a message the more information that you provide the faster we can help you. We won’t have to play the equivalent of phone tag in the digital world :-).

The Facebook group is also searchable as well the instructions, FAQ and blog (see search box below). You may find some helpful information there as well.

It would be great if you could include the following information:

  1. Android or iOS and even better yet the version of the OS you are running for example Android 7.1.1 or iOS 12.4.4 .

  2. The version of the app you are running. One of the places that you can find this is at the bottom of screen when viewing a forecast. Please update to the current version as it may resolve any issues you are experiencing.

  3. Model of your device for example Moto e5 play, Samsung Galaxy S10, iPhone 8, iPad Air, etc.

  4. Anything else that might be unique to your situation.

  5. Screenshots or videos are often helpful too.

Thank you very much

Teresa

Remove ads, subscriptions and TMA

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A few Text Message Alerts subscribers have asked if the removing of ads on the app is included with their text subscription.

To clarify, our Text Message Alerts are a unique product from the app. TMA is also significantly more expensive for us to operate.

We’ve been considering raising the price of TMA (we haven’t raised the price since it began in 2015) but we’re going to try to keep it the same price until we start losing money on it.

Our app requires an in-app purchase to remove ads and based on the rules from the app stores, we’re not allowed to have users pay for it somewhere else (like our website).

So, removing ads will be $5.99/year or $0.99/month and only available as an in-app purchase. This will also improve radar from 5 to 12 intervals.

Our Text Message Alerts remain the most reliable method for alerts in a dangerous situation like a significant tornado when it’s likely that the internet will stop working because towers are overwhelmed, wifi goes down because power is out, and if anything will make it through, it’ll only be basic SMS text messages. Our app requires internet access so most of the time it’ll work great. However, during the most dangerous times when getting information is extremely important, text is easily the best option.

I hope this makes sense and thank you for your questions! And thank you to all those who subscribe to our Text Message Alerts. Without you, this app would be another year away or more as we’ve used the slim profits from TMA to build the app faster! ❤

Adam

(posted to the Facebook group on November 23 2019)

Social media and Text Message Alerts

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Hi! I'd like to clear up a few things:

1. When we launch the app, no content will be removed from our Facebook or other social feeds. Our goal is and has always been to raise awareness about tornadoes and severe weather. Removing content from our social platforms does not support this goal and therefore, we will continue to provide as much free value as possible to the entire community, whether they download our app or not.

2. The app will be free! The subscriptions are entirely optional for those who wish to remove ads, improve the radar from 5 to 12 intervals, and want to help support the app and our team. $5.99/year will provide us with more revenue than ads. $0.99/month will double that and be a more predictable monthly revenue stream for us. A huge thank you to those who wish to go either route!

3. For those who subscribe to our Text Message Alerts, firstly, thank you so much! Secondly, some have asked if removing ads is included in their $3.39/month subscription. At this point in time, that is not possible. The app is a unique product and removing the ads + improving radar requires a separate charge through the app stores in order to work properly. It's also important that we charge a separate fee so that we can recoup the costs associated with expensive radar data, server costs, development, improvements, email support, etc. We would, however, like to eventually add the option to subscribe to Text Message Alerts inside of the app but there are many features and improvements that take priority over that at this time.

I hope all of this makes sense and thank you so much for joining us on this incredible journey! 💙

Adam

(posted to the Facebook group on Oct 29 2019)

Remove Ads + Upgrade Radar

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I'm now realizing that some may not know you can upgrade the radar to 5 hours by subscribing to a "Remove Ads" subscription. We should probably rename it to Remove Ads + Upgrade Radar.

Additionally, some have mentioned they don't mind the ads because seeing them provides us with revenue.

While we appreciate that thought, just to be clear, the revenue we receive from a subscription is drastically higher than what we receive from you seeing a small ad banner at the bottom of the app. Without subscriptions, ad revenue would not even come close to paying for data, servers, development, etc.

A huge thank you to all of those who have subscribed! You're the reason we're barely breaking even at this early and critical stage. 

Adam