The iPhone has not proven a big hit in Japan but that has not stopped a number of applications that were popular with the imode range of phones being ported to the iPhone. Here is a free application made for the iPhone that shows the earthquakes for the day. Since we get quite a lot in Japan they have a page for each day as opposed to some countries where you could probably have a page per week.
Here are today’s earthquakes. Of particular note you can see Tokyo-wan (東京湾） in at 21.22 with a M3.8
and here is the detailed map for that Tokyo Bay earthquake. The information says the earthquake was centered in Tokyo Bay 90 km below the surface and registered as Magnitude 3.8, or a level 2 quake on the Japan scale. Not really enough to shake the house in Shibuya.
Here is the search required from the App Store to get the appli. If you search with the word “earthquake” it doesn’t come up immediately. Instead you get SimCity!
BLEH, I can’t get it… my itunes account is setup under my American credit card! Looks cool though.
Not as cool but the Goo Earthquake page also has an RSS feed
http://weather.goo.ne.jp/earthquake/
That’s a pity. I wondered why I was getting a lot of Japanese apps on my phone. Must be the Japanese credit card. They should let you set a preference for what region of apps you want to see. I can’t believe it is a copyright problem like DVD regions. Most of the apps are free anyway.
I used to get a lot of Japanese apps in my store too [and others], but I just looked and I don’t see to many anymore. Maybe they started to separated a lot of the apps because some people complained that they were not English apps….they don’t realize that there’s another world out here!
Go onto the Japanese store and make a new account. You don’t need a Japanese credit card to register, just a regular e-mail address. Tell me if this doesn’t work for you.
you didn’t feel it? It rocked my place with quite a loud crunching/cracking sound while I was eating my supper.
After the day I had had I thought Friday the 13th couldn’t get any worse.
Imagine if it had been the big one!
I am on the 8th floor but only a very small sway of my chair as I was typing. If it hadn’t been for the iPhone app I wouldn’t have known about it. If it was the big one, though, then the iPhone app probably would go offline. Let’s hope we don’t need to experience that.
What’s the kanji used in the iPhone example for the search?
Oh! I got it! hehe! 地震 earthquake
no probs. enjoy!
I’d rather just keep a bookmark to the JMA website, which shows a nifty map of the epicenter and affected areas from each earthquake.
http://www.jma.go.jp/en/quake/
This is much more useful because you know exactly who got hit and how much damage they are seeing (which is what shindo measures, as opposed to magnitude which only tells you how powerful the quake was at its source).
Don’t think that app would go down well in the UK, but then again it would only need to updated yearly with the tiny amount of earthquakes we have. Great Britain, home to dull weather and few natural disasters. Strange to think of all those who live in earthquake zones.
Thanks for the info, I’m downloading it now… Is good to have a bookmark of the JMA site too…
I also updated some sources on early warning systems
http://shibuya246.com/2009/08/11/earthquake-news/
I’m having the English version of Earthquake and Tsunami alert App on iPhone at http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/japan-alert/id431224231?mt=8