I was poking around on the web the other day and came across a post on 5ones about a new Surf Report app for the iPhone. The post is pretty much a copy/paste from the author of the app’s website. It looked interesting so i decided to check it out.
The app is called Bombora. Search on “Bombora” in the app store and you’ll find it. The app gets data from NOAA, NBDC, and CDIP. Pretty much all the same information that you can find on the surf page on this site. The data is formatted to fit on the small iPhone screen.
The app itself is is fairly intuitive. At the bottom of the main screen there are options to check out the Buoys, C-Man, Forecasts, and Tides. Within each of those 4 sections there are a few options to narrow down your location. Location is narrowed down by one of two ways:
- Regions (Atlantic, N.Pacific, S.Pacific, HAW, Gulf of Mex., or Gulf of AK), or
- Nearby (big brother records your location)
You have the option of adding specific buoys, c-man, or tide locations as favorites. Once you assembled your favorites you then have a quicker, more top level access to that information.
If you dig a little deeper into the CDIP buoys you can get to the 9-band directional data.
Digging into a specific tide station will get you into a line graph and a 72 hr tide prediction.
What i like about the app is it’s watered down, no bullshit interface. You don’t have to weed through a lot of screens to get to what you’re looking for. Once you set up your favorites, it’s even quicker.
My iPhone is the older 2G version and the data transfer is quick enough that i don’t get annoyed. I’m sure it’s quite a bit faster on a 3G iPhone. I have noticed that the app will crash randomly. The only other thing that i noticed was the app doesn’t have any of the Canadian Buoys (La Perouse Bank). I bet there’s some international licensing crap going on there. Aside from the occasional crash and no Canadian Buoys this app is solid.
I dig that there’s not a lot of graphical flair. It’s just the raw data–and therefore quick and efficient. Glad someone came out with a clean surf report app.
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mmm, theres alot of worhtless i phone apps, but bombora aint so bad cause like you said its watered down and does include specific directional data. still though, its just as easy to bookmark a specific page on a forecast site.
WHAT I LIKE ABOUT THE “APP:” IT’S ON IPHONES AKA ONLY FOR IDEOTS
FUCK OFF
i like the fart iphone apps. that and the cannon game. hook that one up to ya car speakers and blow shit up….roll the windows down and freak people out.
sweet.
bro
when i’m rolling down ya block, yer tripping already.
Hello,
I’m one of the authors of Bombora – thanks for taking the time to check out the app.
Regarding Canadian buoys, we are looking into that and we do plan to add a *bunch* of new stations in the upcoming free 1.1 update.
Regarding the crashes, it’s not something I’ve run in to but we are always interested in improving the reliability of the app. Can you tell me – what version of the iPhone software is on your 2G phone? Bombora runs best with 2.2 or above.
Cheers,
Hunter
Hunter – I’m running version 2.2.1. The crashes have happened in all sections of the app. Definitely no discernible pattern. The crashes have happened on the Edge network, rather than wireless. I’ve never actually used this thing on a wireless network.