Not too bad. HKWarnings is currently fourth in the HK iTunes AppStore, in the free weather section:

After a week, here are some stats:

Number of unique devices = 229
Number of visits = 2466

OS version
3.0 => 3
3.1 => 1
3.1.1 => 1
3.1.2 => 26
3.1.3 => 182
3.2 => 15
4.0 => 1

Device type
iPhone => 177
iPad => 15
iPod Touch => 37

I’ve been working on v1.1 all day today: Traditional Chinese localisation.

It will need a fair bit of testing by my friends – I can’t read Chinese!

Anyway – will be coming soon.

HKWarnings is live on the App Store:

It’s a simple app that displays the current Hong Kong Observatory weather warnings. Also, if there is a nearby typhoon, it displays the Tropical Cyclone Track images.

I plan to localise it to Chinese and add a Typhoon Mode for when there is a typhoon nearby and the HK Observatory website is getting a lot of traffic so is slow.

It was originally called “Can We Go Home Yet?” – with one click on your iPhone you can see if the Typhoon 8 signal has been raised and it’s time to go home!

New in app:

• Added red/yellow fire warnings.
• Added Chinese titles for all the warnings on the details page.
• TC Track page now displays the typhoon name.
• TC Track page displays the track images even if there is no T warning in HK. i.e. there is a track of a far off typhoon.
• Tiny aesthetic changes to the settings view and the details page.
• Fixed a bug on the TC track page where the images would stack up one on top of the other.
• If you have chosen Chinese warnings, then pressing the “Open in Safari” link will open the Chinese version of the page.
• Now it doesn’t bail out totally if there is an issue loading the TC track images when everything else is OK.
• Changed default startup image.

New in middle tier:

• Additional defensive code.
• Refactored a bit.
• Now always returns the typhoon track images, if there are any.
• Also doesn’t bail out if there is an issue loading the TC track images when everything else is OK.

Potential issues:

The typhoon track image logic is all new. Not completely tested. Not sure what will happen if there is no typhoon to track.

Hopefully I’ve got the Chinese right !

If there are typhoon track images to load, the app startup time will be a little longer than before. My testing show’s it’s not too bad. I’ve seen a max of 4 seconds, average of 2 seconds. If there are no track images, it should be as fast as before. It will all depend on network speed and how responsive the HK Observatory web server is. Please let me know if it’s too slow and annoying.

Thanks again for your help!

Only diffs are:

• New icons for monsoon and landslip and the “info” button should be more responsive.
• The about screen should show the proper version: “Beta 6”

You might need to delete the app from the phone completely first, then reinstall.

Changes to app:

• Fixed bug in saving settings.
• Fixed error message display size issues.
• Added some cheeky animations for the about/disclaimer screens
• Fixed crash when there is a typhoon, but no typhoon track (shouldn’t happen!)
• App now displays Chinese warnings if you choose that setting.

Changes to middle tier:

• Now parses the Chinese version of the HK Observatory warnings pages.

The Chinese support and parsing is totally experimental. I’ve only been able to test against no warning and one warning. Not two warnings or when there is a typhoon. I expect issues!

The full interface and messages is not localised, just the warnings retrieved from the Observatory.

Changes to iPhone app:

• Got all T8 warning images now and new hot/cold images.
• Added a Tropical Cyclone Track view.
• Point app at my new middle tier that is in HK. It should be a lot quicker to load (sub one second)
• Fixed a couple of leaks.
• Added parse and total timings for info on the detail screen.

Changes to middle tier:

• Moved to a HK server. Show me the quickness!
• Parses the typhoon tracking page to get the img src refs for the typhoon track images.

Potential issues:

• The TC Track view on the app was only tested during the last typhoon. Could be dodgy. They should reload if the track images change, but not tested live.
• The TC Track parsing code has only been tested against one typhoon. Could also be dodgy!
• I spotted 3 warnings in force the other night, but the app only showed one. The HK Observatory had changed the warnings before I could debug it. So still an issue.
• The warning text font size on the main page will change depending on the length of the warning. Looks rubbish. Need to fix.
• Still not got a new default image, icon, landslip, fire, monsoon warning images.

Not sure what’s going on with the app. It’s suddenly become very slow when retrieving the HK Observatory web page data.

The PHP script was timing out, meaning the app received 404 errors. I increased the timeout, so I’m no longer seeing 404s, but it’s all over the place time-wise.

Sometimes it takes 1.5 seconds, sometimes 35 seconds. I won’t use it at 35 seconds, so no one else will!

It has to be network related. The HK Observatorysite loads just fine and very fast at the moment, so it’s got to be due to the hops to my server, then to the HK Observatory site, back to the server, then back to the phone.

I’m going to investigate a host based in HK.

Other apps that seem to go directly to the HK Observatory site (HK Weather, iWeatherHK) are working just fine at the moment.

Booooooooo.