About this app

The application is basically a GUI for an SMS service which is provided by the sailing school of Russian Association of Yacht Skippers for their students and all other sailors.

After you send a special SMS request to the server it replies back with a wind forecast in a desired area for each 6 hours in the upcoming 3 days. This application allows to automatically generate and send such requests in a convenient graphical user interface as well as receive, store and view the forecasts in a more convenient layout.

The service is totally free, the user pays only for the requests - actually usual SMS to a Moscow mobile number from the MTS mobile operator.

The idea of this service is to avoid using any data transfer to obtain a wind forecast. It is quite often that the Internet is not available during sailing or it can be very expensive in roaming mode. By using SMS you can be always sure that no additional charges will be applied rather than just outgoing SMS.

WARNING! The tariff of the outgoing SMS can also be higher than expected, please check with your mobile operator first!

Please send all your feedback and bugreports to developer's email. The application is created on a totally not-for-profit basis by a sailing enthusiast with love to the sea and other sailors. All your suggestions will be thoroughly reviewed and all bugs will be fixed asap. Thanks!

Short userguide:
- Enter coordinates (tap buttons N/S and E/W to change hemispheres) or tap "GPS" button to get your current position from GPS.
- Tap "Send request".
- Wait for the reply from the server (normally takes about 3 to 10 seconds).
- Open the received forecast in the application or from the notification bar. All received forecasts are saved in the app and can be reviewed later. To delete a forecast from the list use the context menu (tap&hold on the item).

Permissions:
- Send and receive of SMS: obviously to send and receive SMS messages to and from the RAYS server. No other numbers or formats of text messages are supported so no payed services will be used or spam messages can be received.
- Fine location: the location sent to the server is approximate, only degrees and minutes of the location are sent (which gives a radius of 1 NM). Access to your fine location is required to communicate with your GPS module. Obtaining coarse location from your network is not possible because it requires data transfer while the goal of the app is to avoid using of the data transfer.
- Vibrate: only for compatibility with some versions of Android, otherwise can be force closed when creating a notification upon receiving of a new forecast.

Have a nice sailing!

Version history:

1.5
- One more bug found and fixed which could lead to a force close of the program in case of incoming SMS from some short service numbers like banks or other services.
- Major code rewrite, stability fixes, more efficient usage of system resources, more reliable way to store application's data.

1.4
- Small bug fix which was not noticed in 1.3.

1.3
- Improved phone number recognition in the incoming SMS messages from the server.

1.2
- Added the ability to bulk delete saved forecasts
- Fixed a minor issue when user was able to try to open a forecast which was already deleted from the database.

New features

1.7
- Major update both in app and on the server side.
- Lots of minor bugfixes
- Adde support for "empty" messages when the forecast supplier does not have data for the requested region.

App Permissions

Allows an application to receive SMS messages.
Allows an application to send SMS messages.
Allows an app to access precise location.
Allows access to the vibrator.