Ainsofs Blog: Technology insights from the Pacific Islands

  Caption: Workshop participants Last week I was in Tonga to facilitate a training workshop for the Tonga Meteorological Services (TMS) and its partners. The workshop is part of finalising the Tonga Joint Early Warning and Response mobile app (app name to be finalised). The TMS lead initiative will help address challenges in communications on the ground and sharing of data with partners in times of natural disasters. Furthermore, the app provides real-time weather warnings using push notifications to mobile devices. Unlike traditional “weather” apps, TMS envisioned a “two-way” app that not only provides weather forecasts but enables the public to report weather and disaster related events to them. It will become the first mobile app for the Government of Tonga and will be available in Tongan and English languages on Android and iOS devices. SPREP provides ICT expertise to assist TMS Caption: Mr. Ainsof So'o reviewing the mobile app One of the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Env...

Jumping into📱 Mobile App development with Flutter🪽. Its a code once deploy many framework backed by Google that lets you deploy Android, iOS, Linux, Windows and Mac apps from the same code base. We are using it to develop a Weather and Emergency response app for the Tonga Met Services. 🫣 Ive found it doesnt play well with Docker which means you have to install the dev environment directly on your machine 👎 . The setup takes about 30 to 60 mins⏳️ depending on your internet connection.  For Android app development its also recommended to plug in a real phone for testing as the emulator takes ages to run. Im close to deploying to my phone. Watch this space! 🎥