Seattle Crime
I’ll admit it. I don’t live in the nicest neighborhood in Seattle. It’s not a rare occurrence that I have helicopters hovering over my house. It’s also not a rare occurrence that I can’t find out why through the normal new channels. And that’s why this app makes me happy.
I’m not someone to freak out about crime or wonder if anything has been reported near my house today (or I probably couldn’t live in my neighborhood) but it’s nice to know if I should lock my doors and hide under the covers when I hear lots of sirens or not and this is what this app does well.
Using your location it shows you the different reports to 911 including aid calls, narcotic activity, accidents, alarms, etc. Each type of call is color coded so you know where to look if something big is happening (red).
If you also wonder what’s up when you hear sirens in your neighborhood then this little app will be perfect for you. Oh, and it’s free so what’s not to love?
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KING 5 Seattle
You know the TV news now know the app. This app is well organized with sections for news, weather (my fav) traffic, movie showtimes, sports, events and classifieds. You can find everything you’d want from the regular website right here. Best yet it even has a function to email news to them so you can report news right now!
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KIRO 7 – Seattle area news, weather, traffic & sports
Kiro has a slightly different look than King 5 in it’s program, on it’s website and in it’s app as well. Categories are arranged across the bottom of the screen with news, video, weather, sports and more as your first choices. The nice part of this app is that you get to the news right away as the home page holds the top two local, national, entertainment and even weird news stories.
The more section of this app is where it gives the most, with ferry schedules, cheap gas prices (excellent!) lottery results (I still didn’t win) and even a flight tracker. The extras on this app make it more than worth having, especially with the price of free.
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Seattle Top News
Maybe you don’t want a lot of apps on your phone. If so then this one is for you as it basically aggregates all of the other news sources into one single app.
The look depends on where it’s pulling information so it varies depending on the source. It also has links to magazines and blogs so if you want to surf that news source it’s great for you.
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Seattle Times Mobile
While I prefer picking up the actual print paper there are times I just don’t get to it. This app fixes this issue for me. The interface is not visually appealing so if you’re not already a print news fan this app isn’t the best for you. But if you want to surf stories by headline without wasting time with a bunch of pretty pictures then this is the app for you.
Sadly news isn’t sorted by section as it would be in a print version (or even a web version) and I’m not sure why. Perhaps an update will fix this issue. One nice feature is that this app allows you to mail a news story which can be helpful when sharing. Sadly there seem to be no other ways to share a story here (twitter, post to facebook). Not a perfect app but worth having.
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