Support

Support for Morse Buddy is provided directly by Sparky1 LLC. There is no ticket system and no bot — email reaches a person.

Common questions

The receiving phone is not picking up the flash.

Check the obvious three first: the two phones need a clear line of sight, the receiving phone needs the flash inside its camera frame, and the sending phone needs Torch mode selected rather than Tone. Beyond that, bright ambient light behind the sender is the usual culprit — move so the flash is against a darker background, or reduce the distance. The diagnostics panel on the receive screen shows the live signal, which is the fastest way to tell whether the phone can see anything at all.

Silent mode does not seem to reach.

Roughly five metres is the realistic range. iPhone speakers put out very little power at 18.5 kHz, and the figure drops further if anything is between the phones or if the sending phone is face-down. If you need more range, use Tone mode.

Can other people tell I am using silent mode?

Yes, potentially. 18.5 kHz is above the hearing range of most adults, but many teenagers hear it clearly, dogs hear it easily, and anyone with a spectrum analyser sees it instantly. Silent mode is discreet. It is not covert, and it should never be relied on as if it were.

Decoding is producing wrong characters.

The receiver derives the sender’s speed from what it observes, so it needs a few characters before it settles. Send the preamble, give it a short run of steady sending, and hold the phone as still as you can — hand movement at distance costs more margin than speed does. Very fast sending in poor light is where errors appear first.

How do I stop the strobe?

It stops on its own after the duration limit, and the stop control is on screen throughout. It always ends with the torch off, so it cannot be left latched on. If the phone becomes warm during a long strobe run, that is expected — the torch at full power generates real heat, which is part of why the duration is capped.

Is my data collected?

No. Morse Buddy has no account, no server and no analytics. Everything happens on the device. See the privacy policy for the full statement.

When is it coming to the App Store?

There is no date. The app is in development and testing. We would rather say that than invent a timeline.

Reporting a bug

The more of this you can include, the faster it gets fixed: your iPhone model and iOS version, which mode you were using, the approximate distance and lighting, what you expected, and what happened instead. If the receive screen's diagnostics panel was open, a screenshot of it is worth a great deal.

Accessibility

Some of what this app does is inherently sensory: seeing a flash, hearing a tone. Where that creates a barrier we want to know, because some of it can be worked around and some of it cannot, and we would rather be specific about which is which. Email us and describe what you need.