Magnitude

A little clarity.
When the earth moves.

Magnitude is an iPhone app for earthquakes. It relays warnings to places where iPhones get none, Colombia first, and shows what just happened from official catalogs. Free, with no ads and no account.

Ask about the beta

In private beta on TestFlight. Not on the App Store yet.

Two things, and nothing else

It warns you

Many Android phones warn their owners of an earthquake through Google's Android Earthquake Alerts System. iPhones in Colombia have no equivalent. You choose a place, your home for instance, and Magnitude relays to your iPhone the warnings observed near it. A warning can arrive seconds before the shaking, with it, or after it.

It tells you what just happened

A fast list and map of recent earthquakes near you and worldwide, from the Servicio Geológico Colombiano (SGC) and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). If you want, it notifies you when a catalog reports an earthquake above a magnitude you choose.

How a warning reaches you

  1. 1Google detects an earthquake and alerts Android phones in the area.
  2. 2A volunteer's Android phone running our Quake Proxy app captures that alert the moment it appears and sends it to our server, with the phone's approximate location.
  3. 3Our server sends it through Apple's push service to every iPhone whose chosen place is near enough to that phone.

Every step depends on phones, networks and services that can be slow or fail, and on a volunteer phone being near your place when the alert comes. That is why Magnitude calls itself a supplement to official warnings, never a warning system. Every warning it shows says how far from your place it was observed and how old it is.

What you will see

Act now
A warning for strong shaking was issued near your place. A full red screen with three instructions: drop, cover, hold on. If you allow Critical Alerts, it can sound through silent mode and Focus.
Heads up
A warning was issued some distance from your place, and lighter shaking may reach you. An amber screen you can dismiss at once.
Earthquake notification
An ordinary notification after SGC or USGS publishes an earthquake, usually minutes after it happened. Off until you turn it on. It is not an early warning.

What it leaves out

No ads. No accounts. No tracking. No third-party code: the app is built only with Apple's own frameworks, so nothing inside it reports to an advertiser or an analytics company.

To send you a warning, our server keeps an anonymous push token and the place you chose, rounded to about a kilometre. It never learns your name or your email, and it does not follow you. Read the privacy policy.

Availability

Status
Private beta on TestFlight. Not on the App Store yet.
Device
iPhone with iOS 17 or later
Languages
English and Spanish
Warnings
Colombia, around a place you choose
Earthquake notifications
Worldwide, or within 10 to 2,000 km of a place you choose
Price
Free. No ads, no purchases.

Questions, or a problem with the app? Go to support.