Local Alerts....New Feature? Say What?

Okay, so I saw the Apple presentation yesterday. I was totally impressed by the offerings. I could live without the iAds, but the fact that they are for free apps made me know that I could opt out if I wanted to. But what struck me senseless was the Local Alerts feature.

I admit that I have become ensconced in the world of Apple over the past two years. I thought long and hard before jumping ship from the Palm platform to the iPhone. But I have never looked back. But there was always something gnawing at me on many occasions: "My Palm could do that." I found myself saying that a lot when several things were not so readily available on the iPhone. Nothing was more glaring than Local Alerts!

Local Alerts were the mainstay for almost all of the important apps that I had on the Lifedrive. My pregnancy listing made in Smartlistogo would send out signals on dates that were important, along with color changes of names for dates that needed to be addressed. It was truly basic.

What nailed me during the presentation was that this was being presented as a New Feature! Something that we can now use as developers. I was stupified! This should have been a basic feature from day one.

For me this is great news. I constantly use Appigo's TODO program which must send its alerts through Apple before it comes back down to my phone. It's not bad, but fails in time sensitive conditions. Here are a few examples:

A. Write letter for A. Shobedoo. Must be done by April 1st.
Date entered: March 2nd.
Time to remind: March 27th.
Actual: March 27th (0900).

Analysis: Not a problem. I was reminded to finish the letter in a timely fashion.

B. Call for telephone deposition for L&I claim for Ms. T. on April 2nd at 4 pm.
Date entered: April 1st.
Time to remind: April 2nd at 3:30 pm.
Actual: April 2nd at 3:45 pm.

Analysis: Big Problem Here! I have always set my presets 15-20 minutes ahead of time
in case I am running behind. This one was set 30 minutes ahead of time and still it was
received 15 minutes late. Server issues?


If you have ever wondered why you would want a local alert, the above two scenarios should answer that question. I was always baffled by the fact that there was no local alert mechanism with the exception of the Calendar. Server issues are major. Apple has to be delivering thousands, if not millions of alerts each day. There is no chance that it can deliver these things on time, every time. My suspicion is that they have woken up and delivered so-called Local Alerts to reduce liability issues. In a program like TODO, if the alerts were about giving yourself Insulin Shots or having some life-saving medication being delivered at a specific time, down-time server issues could lead to potential law suits from developers and customers alike.

It is really about time that this service was offered. It really should have been done a long time ago. I am very happy about this, because now it means that I can write a program for OB that delivers timely reminders for my pregnant patients, ie. Mrs. J needs her glucola test this week or we need to do an ultrasound this week for Mrs. P. The other beauty of this is that since my iPhone has password protection and since Handbase has encryption, I can now use real names on my device. The idea of sending this alert to a 3rd party was not in concert with HIPAA.

This move now also solidifies my move to the Apple ecosystem as a viable alternative to Palm.


LDD.