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Breaking News Notifications?

lexluthor

Android Expert
With all the major news this week, I think I might want an app to notify me about breaking news.

I'd prefer the ability to supress audio and vibrate notifications and just get notification light / status bar notifications.

Seems like Breaking News by NBC allows that, but CNN and Fox apps don't, but getting timely and accurate notifications is also important.

Suggestions?
 
Ive been using News Republic app lately mainly because it takes its news from a lot of sources and because its from the same developers as Appy Geek which i get my android news from. Its far from perfect but its ok :thumbup:
 
I just subscribed to the twitter accounts of the leading news channel in my country and set the twitter app to notify me of updates.
 
I just subscribed to the twitter accounts of the leading news channel in my country and set the twitter app to notify me of updates.

Probably not the solution i wanted, but interesting. Can you set the twitter client to push notify you for only certain people you follow?

So far, CNN app notifications are too frequent and late. Fox and Breaking News by NBC are updating me less and faster. Breaking News had toggles for sound / vibrate, the other 2 don't, but at least they abide by my system notification settings (unlike the damn ESPN app that notifies no matter what). All 3 are already supported by lightflow, so that's not an issue.

With all the news out of Boston, last night was a good time to test, but at this point i really have no way to test. I'll probably just leave all 3 running for now, but i think, ultimately Breaking News will win.

Any more suggestions?
 
Probably not the solution i wanted, but interesting. Can you set the twitter client to push notify you for only certain people you follow?

So far, CNN app notifications are too frequent and late. Fox and Breaking News by NBC are updating me less and faster. Breaking News had toggles for sound / vibrate, the other 2 don't, but at least they abide by my system notification settings (unlike the damn ESPN app that notifies no matter what). All 3 are already supported by lightflow, so that's not an issue.

With all the news out of Boston, last night was a good time to test, but at this point i really have no way to test. I'll probably just leave all 3 running for now, but i think, ultimately Breaking News will win.

Any more suggestions?

Yes you can actually. Just go to the profile of the specific account you want to be notified of, then click the button that looks like a gear and select turn on notifications. It activates notifications for that specific person,.
 
It's a head icon in the official Twitter client, not a gear, but i found it. Don't see a way to control sound / vibrate though, but this is definitely another option. Then i just follow the news sources i want breaking news from.
 
I found the notification settings for official Twitter client, but it looks like it doesn't activate that section unless i turn on sync every x minutes. Doesn't appear to be push, so this might not be a good option. I'd need a short sync interval to get breaking news quickly, but that's probably not great on the battery. Right now, i just check twitter on demand.
 
Oh yeah. I forgot it isn't push. I was using a battery saver that turns off data connection per 15minutes, so the refresh isn't killing my battery too much.
 
slightly political sorry but id suggest (id feel bad if i didnt suggest) that everyone read news from a few sources. Its impossible to avoid propaganda on mainstream news but if you limit yourself to just one of CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera, Russia Today, etc.. (just examples) then youre more than likely seeing a very warped view of world news.
Imagine if you only used North Korea's state news for example.... :)

Other than seeing things from your own eyes, best thing you can do is use news from a veriety of different view points (and funding) and try to form your own opinions ;)
Peace:)
 
slightly political sorry but id suggest (id feel bad if i didnt suggest) that everyone read news from a few sources. Its impossible to avoid propaganda on mainstream news but if you limit yourself to just one of CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera, Russia Today, etc.. (just examples) then youre more than likely seeing a very warped view of world news.
Imagine if you only used North Korea's state news for example.... :)

Other than seeing things from your own eyes, best thing you can do is use news from a veriety of different view points (and funding) and try to form your own opinions ;)
Peace:)


+1!

Dave
 
How can you set up the notification on Twitter for the updates? This is cool :smokingsomb:

I'll quote myself.

Yes you can actually. Just go to the profile of the specific account you want to be notified of, then click the button that looks like a gear and select turn on notifications. It activates notifications for that specific person,.

I've been told the button looks like a person's head now though.
 
Ok, yes, multiple news sources are good. But, here, I'm just looking for the best way to be notified of major, breaking news.

I fail to see how Twitter would work (for me) for this. If I set pull updates to every 30 minutes or an hour, it probably won't kill my battery too bad, but that's not quite timely for breaking news. On the other hand, if I set pull updates to every 5 minutes, it'll probably kill my battery much more quickly, plus, is that even short enough for breaking news anyhow when other apps can push it to me immediately (with no battery hit at all).

I've received a few more "breaking news" updates from CNN, so that app may be updating me for news less critical than I'd consider major, so that one might not be my first choice (though I'm not sure I mind the less major news updates either) and I haven't gotten anything new from Breaking News (by NBC) and Fox News apps, but those both performed perfectly on Friday night when the bomber was captured.

No real reason I couldn't just keep all 3 running. I think they are all push, so battery use of each should be very limited.

Any other suggestions on top of all these?
 
Not to mention CNN is often flat out wrong. It's certainly not the gold standard of journalism it used to be.
 
I fail to see how Twitter would work (for me) for this. If I set pull updates to every 30 minutes or an hour, it probably won't kill my battery too bad, but that's not quite timely for breaking news.

First off if you really need to know lets say within 5 minutes a story breaks, you might want to set your Twitter client to poll for that. The battery drain might not be as bad as you think.

However you might want to put this in a bit of perspective. Yes, if it is something that is happening in your area that could affect you or that you could affect then yes you want to know right away. However if that is the case you'll get a message through the Emergency Alert System. Basically you'll hear a sound similar to the old Emergency Broadcast System alert test. Along with this you will get a text message with the information you need to know (freaked me out first time I had this happen, I initially thought it was coming from my computer and couldn't figure out why, thought it was going to self destruct).

If though it is something not in your sphere of influence. Does it really matter if you get the info 5 minutes, 30 minutes, or even an hour later?
 
First off if you really need to know lets say within 5 minutes a story breaks, you might want to set your Twitter client to poll for that. The battery drain might not be as bad as you think.

However you might want to put this in a bit of perspective. Yes, if it is something that is happening in your area that could affect you or that you could affect then yes you want to know right away. However if that is the case you'll get a message through the Emergency Alert System. Basically you'll hear a sound similar to the old Emergency Broadcast System alert test. Along with this you will get a text message with the information you need to know (freaked me out first time I had this happen, I initially thought it was coming from my computer and couldn't figure out why, thought it was going to self destruct).

If though it is something not in your sphere of influence. Does it really matter if you get the info 5 minutes, 30 minutes, or even an hour later?
I don't NEED to have the breaking new information within 5 minutes. I'm just comparing the available alternatives. If Breaking News/CNN/Fox News apps can give me breaking news within minutes and with no battery drain (due to using android push notifications), but Twitter might take longer and might increase battery drain, why would I want to use Twitter for my needs?

Other people might have different things that are important to them, so maybe Twitter is what they want.
 
Wonder if the UK has an emergency thing like that... we had nothing when Al Quaida attacked Glasgow airport (and epic failed lol) a couple of miles from me
 
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