similar experience here, the UI design is confusing, tell you to select an area but apparently you can't select/drag on the map, you can only typing the address then many times the auto complete doesn't work, and it seems you have to use the incorrect auto completed address...

I was getting those errors too a few days ago when I tried. However, the app does show my correct location. It either actually went through despite the error or is getting location in some other way as a backup.

Probably the latter since I think I did grant location privileges to the app.

Their servers are probably getting hammered. Try again tomorrow or in a few days.

I mean, isn't it the whole point of the app not to crash during an earthquake?

The systems used to register new users are likely quite different from those used to notify existing users during an earthquake. One is write-limited the other is read-limited. The developers quite correctly spent their time optimizing their infrastructure for the read-limited case rather than the write-limited case.

> ...are likely quite different...

> The developers quite correctly spent their time..

We don't know the truth of those assumptions. I've seen reports of MyShake failing to report an earthquake at all which indicates the opposite.

You are of course free to not use MyShake. The project makes no guarantees of efficacy or advance notice.

If your bar is "it must work perfectly" you probably won't be satisfied with any earthquake notification or prediction tools for many years to come.

That said, this app provided value to many people during this quake, and likely has access to a much larger number of sensors than any other providers that the HN ecosystem seems to know about, so it's unlikely there's a magical additional service out there that's astoundingly better than this one.

But you're certainly free to uninstall the app and dis the company for not being perfect, that's your choice to make.

I'm happy they are doing the work they are doing and looking forward to them continuing to get better, as innovative technology products frequently do.

"Like it or uninstall it", what a shallow take. The app isn't exempt from criticism of course, and they can use the criticism to make it better. I can use it and criticize it at the same time. I'm not "dissing" anyone or any company by providing feedback. Your understanding of criticism is backwards to say the least.

A lot of Earthquake insurance companies are probably also getting requests for a lot of quotes. It'll die down once people see the quotes, coverage and deductibles ..