What to Do When You Get an Android or iPhone Amber Alert

iPhone Amber Alerts automatically push important alerts about missing children directly to iPhones causing phones to emit a loud noise and display a small alert on-screen.

U.S. carriers now send mobile Amber Alerts and other important emergency alerts to the iPhone 4 through iPhone 7 and to most Android smartphones. These alerts often incldue vehicle information, but the same tool can send weather alerts as well.

This is an important tool for helping identify and track down missing children, but the alerts don’t always include all the information users need to be of help to officials.

Sample iPhone Amber alert.

If you receive an Android or iPhone Amber Alert, there will be a small amount of information such as a child’s description or the description of a car and a license plate, but not much else. The Amber Alert on iPhone is limited to a certain number of characters like a text message. The alerts show up on the lock screen and Notification Center with a hazard triangle next to it to indicate this is an emergency alert.

There is no charge for Amber Alerts on the iPhone when delivered through this method. This Emergency alert method also covers weather related emergencies, though it does not cover things like a Thunderstorm warning.

Sample Android amber alert.

Users will see an Amber Alert on the iPhone based on their location, which means if an Amber Alert is issued in New York City while you are traveling there, you will see an alert, even if your billing zip code is in Ohio. Emergency alerts work the same way.

If you get an iPhone Amber Alert, the best place to go for more information is AmberAlert.gov and MissingKids.com. Both of these websites will deliver new information about the Amber alert to your iPhone.

The free iPhone Amber Alert app offers more information.

There is also a free Amber Alert iPhone app that offers more information about missing children. The app allows users to report a sighting directly from the app. This iPhone Amber Alert app has not been updated in several years but appears to function.

If you did not get an Amber Alert on the iPhone, but a coworker did, you should make sure that Government Alerts are set to on. Grab the iPhone to get started. Go to Settings -> Notifications -> Scroll down to Government Alerts and make sure Amber Alerts is marked on.

If this doesn’t solve the problem it is possible your carrier does not support the built-in iPhone Amber Alerts yet.

How to Turn Off Android & iPhone Amber Alerts

If you don’t want to get notifications for Amber Alerts you can turn them off on your iPhone. If you do this you will not get the notifications at all. You may want to consider using Do Not Disturb to prevent your iPhone from waking you up at night instead of turning them off altogether.

How to turn off iPhone Amber alerts.

Go to Settings -> Notifications -> Scroll down and turn off Amber Alerts. This will turn off iPhone Amber alerts for your iPhone.

On Android, the settings will vary, but you can go to Settings and look for Emergency Alerts or Government Alerts to change these settings.

What's New in iOS 11.4.1

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The iOS 11.4 update added Messages in iCloud and AirPlay 2, but it also brought issues along with it. The iOS 11.4.1 update keeps these long anticipated features and includes fixes for some iOS 11.4 problems.  Specifically the iOS 11.4.1 update; Fixes an issue that prevented some users from viewing the last known location of their AirPods in Find My iPhone.  Improves reliability of syncing mail, contacts and notes with Exchange accounts.   This update also includes other bug fixes and security upgrades. It's possible that this update includes a fix for bad iOS 11.4 battery life.  Messages in the Cloud allows you to backup your iMessage conversations to the cloud just like you back up your notes, contacts and photos. This means they are backed up in case something happens to your phone, but that's not all.  Messages in the Cloud syncs deleted messages and threads across your iCloud devices. This means everything will show up the same across your Apple devices. With this in place you should see the same conversations everywhere, all of the time.  This also backs up the photos and attachments in the cloud so you have more room on your iPhone or iPad. When you get a new device all of the messages sync to that device so you don't lose anything.

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