Surf Forecasts: iPhone Surf Reports and Forecasts

Finally Surfing the Web

Fast loading buoy weather reports to your cell phone and web enabled mobile device

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UPDATED: April 15, 2008

OTESurf Mobile now easier to navigate from your phone. All the pages are very small, fast loading and loaded with the information you need.

On your phone, visit http://www.otesurf.com/go that will take you to an index page with links to all of the currently available reports. Entering the url into a phone is a pain and the new navigation home page for phones will make it easier.

I've also made the pages to work on some of the older phones that were having a problem with inline styles. The pages are still really small. Edisto 41004 now comes in at a minuscule 0.88KB - wow!

And for those with free bandwidth, I'll have something a little more robust coming in a few days. Wave maps, water temps, long range forecast and for those who have a GPS enabled devices... something really-really cool

 

Here's what the reports will look like on your cell phone and iPhone
www.otesurf.com/go

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Have you ever been driving and started to wonder what the wave buoys are doing? Interested in wave height and conditions offshore? Wonder what directions the winds are at your local break? If you're a surfer or an avid offshore fisherman, chances are you have.

I do too and that's why I made a few new web pages, specifically with mobile devices in mind. I wanted to be able to access the buoy data I needed on my cell phone. It needed to be fast loading, easy to navigate, formatted to work on nearly any mobile device and as small a download as possible. I think I did it.

Reports are updated every 20 minutes, even though some data sources update hourly. Certain locations have more variables, like swell direction, while others do not. I will be adding more locations soon.

So, here are the links, I know you're getting anxious and ready to see 'em already. One link will take you to the webpage (which won't look like much on a 1024 x 768 monitor).

The Send to Phone link, (not working right now) will allow you to send the link to your cellphone via email and make it super easy for you to get the URL into your cell phone. I haven't gotten this totally figured out, so for now, you'll have to manually enter the URL into your phone. Sorry.

 

Navigation on most web sites using a cell phone isn't fun. The pages are too wide, too tall and its hard to find the one spot you need. I boiled down the data to the least amount of information I needed. You can see my phone's screen is 176x220 and that's a small screen. As you can see, there's almost no need to scroll the page and everything you need is right there: tide, wind, water temperature, air temperature, wave height, wave period and a link to Hostel Board Company, a co sponsor in this endeavor.

The pages are very lite with most coming in under 2KB. That's important because my cell phone company charges me 1 cent per KB. That may not seem like much, but considering how many web pages are 40-150KB, that penny per KB adds up. There was no way I was going to pay a $1 a day just to use my phone to check the buoys. So, I consolidated the data all into one easy to read page that's uses 99% less bandwidth than I was using getting the same information from multiple locations. The Folly Pier comes in at a tiny 1.46KB, which means less than $0.02 per visit. I can live with that.

Obviously, you don't even have to have an iPhone, any web enabled mobile device, can now get the latest buoy reports in an easy to read and easy to use method when you're away from your computer.

I hope you find this useful. If you want to see other locations, drop by the forum and leave a message. I'll see what I can do.

 

Regional Buoy: Offshore Wind and Wave

Local Reports: Wind, Wave, Tide