Android Tide Calculator Apps : "Tide Now"
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12/29/2012: Tide Now WA 2013 - Now Available.
12/30/2012: Tide Now OR 2013 - Now Available.
1/1/2013: Tide Now CA 2013 - Now Available.
Includes
New Year's Data and functional improvements.
Free Downloads Available on Google Play
Written and Published by Lawrence Freytag.
These Android applications presents the tide for a given day, time, and location.
It first shows the location for which the tide is being calculated, this is called the Tide Station. It displays the day of the week and the date and time zone for which the tides shown below are calculated.
It then displays the present tidal status. This is a snapshot in time, including the present height of the tide, the direction is it flowing, and how fast the tide level is changing. These items are presented along with the time for which they were calculated.
It next displays the times and levels of the high tides and low tides. There are usually three or four highs and lows in a day.
Finally it displays a plot of the tide heights for the day. The green dots are the hourly heights. The white cursor-line marks the present time. The red dots show the high and low tides. A quick glance shows you what you need to know. This graph is presented on a fixed 2 foot and 2 hour grid. (1 foot grid for CA). You can change the text size to trade off display space between the graph and the tables above it.
Tide Now supports three touch-screen gestures. The display can be changed to the next day or the previoust day by swiping left or right. The display can be refreshed by using a long press. This causes an updated display to be presented.
Features of Tide Now App
| Self Contained | This app does not use the internet to get its results. It performs its function purely by calculation. It will work on a phone or a tablet in or out of range of communications. |
| Quick Simple and Clean | Predictions are quick and the app is simple to use and understand. Gestures are supported for looking at the next and prior day tides. There are no ads and app cannot access phone features. The app is small, about 80KB. |
| Simple User Options | There are controls for the user, provided by the settings menu, to set it up as desired. |
| Phone or Tablet | The app works on any Android device at level 2.3.3 or above, most phones and tablets are supported. When the device is rotated to landscape mode, a header plus two column display format is set. This makes better use of a large display such as is available on a tablet. |
| Accurate Predictions | This app was written using well-known tidal prediction algorithms and publicly available location data. It can be expected to match very closely to federally-published tide tables. It uses the "Harmonic Prediction of Tides" methodology in long use for tide elevation predictions. |
| Designed for On The Spot Use | The tidal status presentation gives an immediate snapshot of the tide situation, more useful than just a standard list of highs and lows. The display can be refreshed at any time to update this status. This app is designed for use while actively out and about along the waterfront. It uses large text and the white on black text choice is easily read on the bright sun. |
| Any Date of Year | In addition to today's tides, a date picker is available to choose any day of the year. |
| Next Day, Prior Day Swipes | Gestures are supported to go to "next day" and "past day" to step day by day through a range of dates. These operate like turning the page of a book. |
| Adjustable Text Size | The text size can be changed to use your particular display to best advantage. |
| Adjustable Colors | There are five color schemes, good for situations ranging from bright sun to night use. |
| Numerous Tide Stations | There are locations available around the inland waterway as well as the coastal areas. See maps below |
Disclaimer/Scope of Tide Now App
The application is built for a particular state or geographic region. It is built for a single calendar year. This allows me to check sample calculations for each of the tide stations against government tide tables. These tables are made available in October or November of each year for the following year. This lets me make sure the location and data set up as well as the formulas are working as expected. However, the tide predictions, being made on the client's phone or tablet, are impossible to guarantee as correct.
Set Up Options (Settings Menu)
Picured above is a close up of the options menu as displayed on an 8" Android 3.2 tablet. On newer generation Android devices, there are soft keys as pictured above (return, home, settings). On older generation Android devices, there is a hard button used for a settings key. In either case, choosing the options menu and settings follows the same procedure. Display above is what is seen when the settings button is used. The table below describes the six settings items.
| Show Now, Today | For use when you have been looking at other dates, it brings the tide display back to today/now. Note: The "long press" gesture can be used for this purpose also. |
| Pick Date in Year | A calendar entry dialog is displayed, you can choose a month and a day, for which that day's tides will then be displayed. Note: Dates other than "today" will have the highs and lows and the hourly heights displayed, but will not have the tidal status display. The tidal status display is not possible for this situation because there is no particular time to reference. Note: you can pick another year, but the app will not display any tides for other years than that one which it was built for. |
| Change Tide Station | There are twelve tide stations available. See display below. |
| Change Text Size | Using this menu, you can increase or decrease the text size, one step at a time, to find a good desired size for your phone or tablet. Make sure to check both portrait and landscape orientation are displayed well with your chosen text size. |
| Change Text Color | There are five color schemes available, for various settings. See display below. |
| About Gestures | The three gestures supported are listed, and each can also be directly caused by using the menu item. |
Calendar Entry Dialog. This sequence illustrates four steps. At the first, the present date is displayed. Next, the choose day option is chosen and a new date selected. Third, results from that date are presented. At that point, a left swipe was performed to go to the next day, which is the shown last. Note that "non-today" displays do not have the "present tide status" section; as a result the space left for the graph is larger.
Text Color Choices
Washington Edition Tide Stations Choice Dialogs and Maps
Washington is broken down into eight regions with ten stations each The North Puget Sound region supports Seattle tides, Des Moines tides, Bremerton tides, Eagle Harbor tides, Everett tides, Edmonds tides, Kingston tides, Port Madison tides, Poulsbo tides, and Point Vashion tides.
The South Puget Sound region supports Tacoma tides, Burton tides, Gig Harbor tides, Olympia tides, Shelton tides, Home Carr Inlet tides, Rocky Point Eld Inlet tides, Allyn Case Inlet tides, Arcadia Totten Inlet tides, and Steilacoom tides.
The Strait of Juan de Fuca region supports Port Townsend tides, Dungeness Bay tides, Sequim tides, Gardiner Discovery Bay tides, Port Angeles tides, Crescent Bay tides, Sekiu tides, Neah Bay tides, Twin Rivers tides, and Tatoosh Island tides.
The Whidbey and Fidalgo Islands region supports Langley tides, Bush Point tides, Admiralty Head Keystone Harbor tides, Freeland tides, Coupeville tides, Oak Harbor tides, La Connor tides, Cornet Bay tides, Anacortes tides, and Bowman Bay tides.
The San Juans and Georgia Strait region supports Richardson Lopez Island tides, Friday Harbor tides, Roche Harbor tides, Turn Point Stuart Island tides, Echo Bay Sucia Island tides, Rosario tides, Orcas tides, Bellingham tides, Cherry Point tides, and Blaine tides.
The Hood Canal region supports Port Ludlow tides, Port Gamble tides, Bangor tides, Whitney Point Dabob Bay tides, Pleasant Harbor tides, Seabeck Bay tides, Triton Head tides, Ayock Point tides, Union tides, and Lynch Cove tides.
The Pacific Coast region supports Makah Bay tides, La Push tides, Point Grenville tides, Ocean Shores tides, Aberdeen Hoquiam tides, Westport tides, Bay City Grays Harbor tides, Cosmopolis Chehalis River tides, Toke Point Willipa Bay tides, and Long Beach Nahcotta tides.
The Columbia River region supports Astoria tides, Columbia River Entrance tides, Fort Canby Jetty A tides, Ilwaco Baker Bay tides, Chinook Baker Bay tides, Hungry Harbor tides, Harrington Point tides, Skamokawa Tides tides, Longview tides, and Vancouver WA tides.
Oregon Edition Tide Stations Choice Dialog and Maps
Oregon is broken down into four regions with ten stations each.
The Columbia River Region support Hammond tides, Warrenton tides, Astoria Port Docks tides, Astoria Tongue Point tides, Settlers Point tides, Knappa tides, Wauna tides, Saint Helens tides, Rocky Point tides, and Portland tides.
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The Oregon Coast North Region support Seaside tides, Nehalem tides, Brighton tides, Barview Jetty tides, Garibaldi tides, Bay City tides, Netarts tides, Nestucca Bay tides, Taft tides, and Depoe Bay tides.
The Oregon Mid Coast Region supports Yaquina Bay Bar tides, Newport tides, South Beach tides, Yaquina tides, Winant tides, Toledo tides, Waldport tides, Drift Creek Alsea River tides, Suislaw Entrance tides, and Florence tides.
The Oregon South Coast Region support Umpqua Entrance tides, Gardiner tides, Reedsport tides, Charleston tides, Empire tides, Coos Bay tides, Bandon tides, Port Orford tides, Wedderburn Rogue River tides, and Brookings tides.
California Edition Tide Stations Choice Dialog and Map
Tide Now CA supports the following tide stations in the state of California: Crescent City Tides, Eureka Tides, Arena Cove Tides, Point Reyes Tides, San Francisco Tides, Monterey Tides, San Luis Obispo Tides, Santa Barbara Tides, Santa Monica Tides, Los Angeles Tides, Newport Beach Tides, La Jolla Tides, San Diego Tides.