SharkShout Manual
What is SharkShout?
SharkShout is an Apple Watch app that helps you communicate with others while SCUBA diving.
Using the watch’s knob (the “Digital Crown”), you select common PADI dive signals or compose texts. You then turn your wrist over to present your watch to your fellow diver(s), who can read your message from a large scrolling display.
Additionally, SharkShout contains an experimental feature for underwater texting (note that WiFi/cellular/BlueTooth doesn’t work underwater). Your message is turned into sounds, which another nearby Watch running SharkShout might be able to “hear” and display, especially if amplified using some simple hardware. There will also be a spoken audio feature. More information will be forthcoming here in a few months.
Implied Consent
By using the SharkShout Apple Watch application program (the “App”), you acknowledge that you have read and understood, and that you agree and consent to be bound by, the contents of this entire document and web page (the “SharkShout Manual”). In particular, you acknowledge that you have read, understood, and agree and consent to be bound by the six (6) sections below in (near the end of) this document with section headers entitled “Documentation Inaccuracies”, “Hold Harmless”, “Not a Dive Computer”, “Only intended for the Apple Watch Ultra”, “Experimental and Entertainment Use Only”, and “Disclaimer”.
SharkShout App Setup
When you enter the water, you will not be able use the touch screen on your Apple Watch. SharkShout has an alternate user interface using the Digital Crown, but that still leaves the problem of how to launch SharkShout in the first place.
Therefore, you will want to set your Apple Watch’s settings so that SharkShout becomes the frontmost app when the orange Action Button is pressed, and indeed, whenever submerged. You need to do this before getting wet.
Getting back to SharkShout when Underwater
Let’s say the Watch, for one of several reasons, switches away from SharkShout when you’re in the water. How do you get back to it without using the (disabled) touch screen?
Double-click the Digital Crown to get back to SharkShout if needed.
The act of rapidly double-clicking the Digital Crown (that is, double-pushing the physical Crown button) causes watchOS to rotate the frontmost-ness status among the most-recent 2 or 3 recently-frontmost apps.
This is regardless of submersion or sleep status.
So, you can use this watchOS feature to return to SharkShout (or any other recent app) even if the Action Button and Auto Launch When Submerged do not work (yet).
Note how fast the Crown is being double-clicked in this screen recording (look at the white circles).
Launching SharkShout on Action Button Press
NOTE: This information is subject to change. We are working with Apple to improve this. The images below represent how we want it to work. It does not work this way at the present time.
Causing the Action Button to launch SharkShout — Steps:
| 1 | (This assumes you have SharkShout installed on your Watch) |
| 2 | Press the Crown until you get to your list or screen of apps (your “App View”) |
| 3 | Tap Settings (gray gear icon) |
| 4 | Scroll down to find and tap the button named Action Button (orange circle icon) |
| 5 | You should see “Action”(s) and “App”(s); tap App (it will probably be Depth or Oceanic+) |
| 6 | |
Launching SharkShout on submersion
Causing submersion to launch SharkShout — Steps:
| 1 | (This assumes you have SharkShout installed on your Watch) |
| 2 | Press the Crown until you get to your list or screen of apps (your “App View”) |
| 3 | Tap Settings (gray gear icon) |
| 4 | Tap General (gray gear icon) |
| 5 | Tap Auto-Launch |
| 6 | Scroll down to find the section When Submerged |
| 7 | Turn on the Auto-Launch App switch, if not already turned on |
| 8 | Tap on the app icon immediately underneath Auto Launch App (it might be the Depth or Oceanic+ app icon) |
| 9 |
The Main Screen
This is the screen to which all other screens and modes return. In addition to several buttons to directly and immediately send messages, there are buttons which call up different screens, a Conversation Window in the middle, and several pieces of status information on the top.
Message reception only happens when you are on the Main Screen. That is, message reception does not happen if you are in (on) one of the other (sub-) Screens or if the SharkShout app is asleep (shown by an “X” over the Conversation Window).
The Crown Interface
In dry conditions, you can control SharkShout with the touchscreen, just like any other app.
Underwater, you control SharkShout by using the Digital Crown and certain gestures. No extra hardware is needed for this. This is necessary because when your Apple Watch detects submersion, it disables the touch screen.
Note that you can practice using the alternative SharkShout Crown Interface in dry conditions as well. We recommend that you spend a few minutes doing so.
Controlling SharkShout Underwater
You can control SharkShout when submerged by turning the Digital Crown to move an orange selection highlight “cursor”.
You then “tap” the highlighted button or area by doing a few wiggles back-and-forth; that is, turning the Crown up-and-down about a quarter-turn, about three times.
Controlling SharkShout Underwater — Steps:
| 1 | (This assumes SharkShout is the current frontmost app) |
| 2 | Turn the Digital Crown in either direction |
| 3 | You will see a circular orange highlight — use this to navigate to the button you wish to “tap” |
| 4 | Wiggle the Digital Crown “in place” back-and-forth over your target button a few times to “tap” |
| 5 | (Navigate to your next button as desired) |
The Crown Interface — Behavior & Tips
Scaling — Some screens require more Crown motion than others. This contributes to consistency between screens of different complexity.
Snapping — If, after “landing” on a button, you wait a moment, you will feel a haptic click. This informs you that you are now “snapped” to the currently-highlighted button, such that it is a bit harder to “slip off” of it, if your next move is to do the slight back-forth wiggle to “tap” the currently-highlighted button.
Depth — In some cases, buttons are “deep”: if you keep wiggling (or tapping), you will see multiple related messages or message-forms. For example, most Dive Signals have such multiple forms.
Auto-Jump-To-Send — In some cases, after “tapping” a button, the highlight-circle location will automatically move to a common “next” location. For example, if after selecting a Dive Signal, you stop using the Crown (e.g. to navigate somewhere else), you will automatically be moved to the “Send” button, because most likely that would have been your next move.
Width — Buttons which are “wide” or “important” (“Cancel”, “Send”, backspace, etc.) require a little more Crown motion to pass by. This helps against “slipping off” when doing the wiggle motion.
Scrolling the SharkShout Conversation Window
Since you can’t swipe the touchscreen underwater, and since the Crown is used for control, how do you scroll the Conversation screen to look at past messages? SharkShout supports a few gestures for this purpose. Note, however, that these are not essential: SharkShout will automatically scroll when needed.
Scrolling the Conversation Window — Steps:
| 1 | (This assumes SharkShout is the current frontmost app) |
| 2 | To scroll UP, give the Watch case a brisk counter-clockwise twist (that is, grab the Watch’s upper-right and lower-left corners with your other hand’s index finger and thumb, and twist) |
| 3 | To scroll DOWN, give the Watch case a brisk clockwise twist (this gesture does not work very well and is not recommended) |
| 4 | To scroll ALL THE WAY DOWN, give the Watch case and your wrist a brisk thrust “down” in the “Z” direction, that is, perpendicular to the Watch face |
Sleep Mode
Unfortunately, the Apple Watch will place apps in sleep mode under certain conditions, such as moving your wrist away from a watch-face-observing stance. Fortunately, it seems to do this a lot less when submerged and running submersion-aware apps.
SharkShout is submersion-aware, but does not have permissions to prevent sleep. SharkShout can, however, detect sleep (as all apps can), and takes the following action:
Because SharkShout, when in sleep mode, cannot receive messages. SharkShout indicates that it is asleep by placing a big “X” plus a message on the main screen.
This is similar to how SharkShout also cannot receive messages while in one of its sub-screens.
While asleep, the Watch consumes less power and apps are put into sleep mode, but the display stays on. After some time, even the display is turned off. However, the Apple Watch Ultra is able to keep its display turned on for a longer period of time than other Apple Watches, and, in fact, seems to keep the display on indefinitely while submerged.
To get out of sleep mode, wiggle the watch or make a gesture as if checking the time (“bringing it up” to look at the watch face) or turn the Crown.
Composing Messages
There are several ways in which you can compose messages:
| 1 | Directly — tap the red No button or green Yes button on the Main Screen |
| 2 | With a signal via the Dive Signals screen — tap the bottommost button on the Main Screen |
| 3 | By typing text via the Keyboard screen — tap the blue ABC button on the Main Screen |
| 4 | By tapping the blue Re-send button on the Main Screen |
| 5 | By invoking the Alarm Mode — tap the red triangle button on the top of the Main Screen |
How others see your Messages
SharkShout lets you compose messages that you can “send” to fellow divers. There are several ways in which your fellow divers can see your messages:
| 1 | The Marquee — a big scrolling “ticker tape” of your message |
| 2 | An audible encoded sequence of tones that other SharkShout apps can receive, under limited circumstances |
| 3 | Your message is saved, as messages on the right side in blue, in a text Conversation Window on the Main Screen |
| 4 | If your fellow diver(s) are also running SharkShout, and if they have selected the same Audible Channel, and if they are close enough and/or you have audio amplifier hardware on your wrist “connected” to your Apple Watch, and if there is not too much ambient noise, then they might see your message on the left side in gray in their text Conversation Window on their Main Screen |
Receiving Messages
As stated above, under limited circumstances, you can receive messages from other users running their SharkShout app; these appear on the left side in gray of the Conversation window on the Main Screen. Note that this is a highly experimental feature and will meet with limited success. See the section “SharkShout Acoustics” below.
The Dive Signals Screen
The Dive Signals Screen is activated by tapping on the white boat / fish / balloon icons button at extreme bottom on the Main Screen.
These are pre-composed messages which are common while diving. They are somewhat color-coded such that recreational sea life messages are grouped in blue, dive-related “business” messages in green, urgent messages in red, and breathing-air-related messages in yellow.
Most icon buttons here are “deep” — they have more than one Dive Message “in” them. That is, if you repeatedly tap (e.g. by wiggling the Crown) on a Dive Message icon, you will see multiple messages which are topically related or are simply different statement-vs-question forms, and eventually rotate back to the original message.
For example, the “left-right-arrow-and-question-mark” icon offers choices of these messages:
- Which way?
- I am lost
- Are you lost?
- Are we lost?
- Are they lost?
As another example, a list of common dive skills for SCUBA instruction is found under the “1-2-3-list” icon, after some general task-based imperatives and questions:
- Do your next task
- I will go to my next task
- I can’t do my next task
- What should I do next?
- Repeat this skill
- Skill — Reg recovery
- Skill — Clear mask
- Skill — Replace mask
- Skill — No-mask swim
- Skill — Signal & Share air
- Skill — Share air buddy swim
- Skill — CESA & Orally inflate
- Skill — Weight drop
- Skill — Replace SCUBA unit
- Skill — Hover
- Skill — Fin pivot
Some (important) messages appear under more than one icon.
You cannot send an empty message.
The Keyboard Screen
The Keyboard Screen is activated by tapping on the blue “ABC” button on the Main Screen.
Here you can compose custom messages. As with all SharkShout messages, you are limited to upper-case Latin, Arabic numerals, a few basic symbols, the space character, and two basic emojis.
You are limited to 80 total characters, and, for various reasons, further limitations imposed by horizontal width of certain characters and emoji content. A bar graph at the right side might appear to show characters remaining.
You cannot send an empty message.
The Marquee
The Marquee simply shows your message as a big scrolling display which you can show to your fellow divers. It is shown upside-down for you, so that it is in the correct orientation for whom you are showing it to.
You should turn your wrist so that you display your Watch face to your fellow divers.
While you are turning your wrist to show your Watch to your fellow diver(s) to show your message, you should also be turning the Digital Crown, at least for the first few seconds. This will prevent watchOS from putting SharkShout to sleep. You only need to do this Crown turning while in the process of turning your wrist.
To prompt you to turn the Crown to prevent Sleep Mode, a reminder screen will be shown when you send a message — immediately before the Marquee starts. This screen will show orange up-down moving arrows, until you rotate the Crown, or until about a 15 second timeout, and then proceed to the Marquee. If you pick the fastest-scrolling (or no-) Marquee setting in the in-app Settings Screen, this prompt screen is skipped.
If the scrolling stops, then the Watch went to sleep. Simply turn the Digital Crown some more to wake. It might take a little bit of practice to get used to turning the Crown while presenting your wrist, but if you learn to do it in one smooth motion, you’ll find that you only need to do the crown turning at the beginning of your “presentation” — certainly not during the entire scroll period.
Due to text measurement issues, emojis might be shown in ASCII-art form (e.g. “:-)”) in some cases.
The Acoustic rendition of the message plays immediately, regardless of what settings are in effect (marquee-speed, crown turn reminder prompt, marquee-enable).
We recommend that you practice sending messages in dry conditions, turning your wrist while turning the Crown in one motion to present your scrolling message to others.
SharkShout Acoustics
The Acoustic transmittal of messages and the facility to receive them (which constitutes a codec or modem) is a highly experimental feature of SharkShout.
Messages are compressed using a simple entropy and dictionary technique, and are then encapsulated into frames with a 3-bit sender ID and a 4-bit checksum, and are then used to direct a 6-symbol clocking rotator, where the advancement of the rotator is what encodes the data: two bits at a time = usage of 4 symbols, plus an end-of-message sentinel = usage of the 5th symbol. The symbol stream drives a frequency-shift-keying (FSK) 3-tone chord generator. The three tone sets can have a set each of (2-notes, 2-notes, 3-notes). The waveform of each note has a ramp up/down envelope and chirping to present some frequency diversity against destructive interference cancellation. Two of the tone sets in the chord are used in a (row, column) fashion similar to DTMF, yielding the 6 possible symbols, and the remaining tone set is used as a parity (this is in addition to the higher-level checksum).
The receiver uses a discrete Fourier transform and uniqueness peak detector with a matrix to check tone parity and thus to recover the symbol stream, which is passed though a majority function to provide robustness against multipath, which is de-rotated to recover the clock and usage stream, which is interpreted to recover end-of-message and the bit stream, which is de-framed and checksummed to recover payload data packets, which are finally decompressed to recover the text stream.
There are 2 channels (of the above tones); the sender and receiver must be on the same channel.
You can test this codec by putting two Apple Watches next to each other, both running SharkShout, making sure both channel settings are the same, and sending a message. Under these conditions (in air), a range of a meter should always work (unless high ambient noise), and up to 5 meters has been tested successfully. It is, however, of a very low data rate: several seconds for e.g. 25 bits.
In water, however, the Apple Watch Ultra’s sound output / speaker (and possibly sound input / microphone) does not work very well.
Therefore, external hardware is necessary for actual wireless acoustic communication in water. Using an electromagnetic pick-up coil near the Apple Watch Ultra’s speaker, an amplifier, and a proper underwater speaker, we have had some success transmitting across a swimming pool, and will soon be doing trials in the ocean. See also coming very soon the new iPhone SharkShout II app.
The Alarm Mode and its Confirmation Screen
The Alarm (Confirmation) Screen is activated by tapping on the top-center red triangle icon on the Main Screen. This brings up a screen where if you confirm, you enter the Alarm Mode; else, you will return to the Main Screen.
Once in the Alarm Mode, you can tap “Cancel” or turn the Crown (either way) though several complete revolutions to exit this mode and return to the Main Screen.
The Alarm Mode will first send the text “HELP” via the Acoustics, and then repeatedly sound a solid tone plus a human-Morse-code-understandable “SOS” using the dual-frequency United States Emergency Broadcast System (EBS) tone. While in Alarm Mode, a flashing red triangle will cover most of the screen.
The Alarm mode will pause due to the app going to sleep due to watchOS action; we do not yet have Apple permission to override this. You can re-wake the watch/app/alarm by twisting your wrist.
The Clock Area
At extreme upper-right is the time of day display. To its immediate left might be an orange microphone icon; this indicates that SharkShout is listening for messages sent via Acoustics. Note that this icon is not present — and thus SharkShout cannot receive messages — when SharkShout is not the frontmost app, when it is in sleep mode, or when it is in one of the non-Main Screens.
The Info Area
At extreme upper-left is an area which changes every few seconds to a different piece of informational text.
Future versions of the App might display different or additional items here. For example, depth and water temperature if and when Apple gives us permission to do so.
Items currently shown are:
| 1 | Your user identity (one of 8 fixed avatars) for sending or displaying messages |
| 2 | The audio output channel for SharkShout Acoustics experimental communication or Voice text-to-speech mode |
| 3 | Remaining battery life percentage |
| 4 | Current compass heading (referenced to top of watch, with the watch-face level); when the compass rose is current, this additionally shows True heading |
| 5 | Water temperature if immersed, and 5 minutes after immersion stops (Celsius and Fahrenheit) |
| 6 | Depth if immersed (Meters and Feet) |
Tap the Info Area for Settings
Besides viewing the Info Area, actually tapping on the Info Area will bring up the SharkShout in-app Settings Screen. Note that when navigating to this area using the Crown Interface, the info text will change to a “gear” icon.
The Settings Screen
As stated above, Settings Screen is activated by tapping on the “Info” area / “gear” icon at extreme upper-right on the Main Screen.
You can choose one of 8 fixed presets for your avatar — they are Dive Master, Cindy, Ricky, Keith, Tracy, Kate, Quid, and Fred. This avatar identity is shown in the Marquee and is audio-transmitted along with your message.
You can choose one of several channels for the experimental Acoustic communication codec.
The Dive Master identity is always restricted to Acoustic Channel 1. Related settings will automatically adjust.
You can choose the Marquee scrolling speed by repeated tapping on the last (“signpost”) icon. You can toggle between slow, normal, and fast speeds, and “off” — where “off” means that there will be no Marquee; that is, only Acoustics.
The “fast” and the “off” Marquee speeds dispense with the prompt/reminder for you to turn the Crown to avoid going into Sleep Mode when presenting the Marquee to your fellow divers.
None of the in-app settings governed by this screen are saved if you cancel out of this screen; you must tap “OK” for your changes to take effect.
The Settings > Info Screen
NOTE: A revision is in the works that will soon be posted to the App Store to show the version number in the way described below. At the present time, it does not quite work this way yet.
The Info Screen is only reachable by the gray “Info” button at the bottom of the Settings Screen.
This is an “About…” screen that shows very basic instructions for how to use the SharkShout Crown Interface.
At the very bottom is (1) the Redwines Garage copyright message and year; (2) the formal marketing version (e.g. “1.0”) which is of the standard form of positive decimal numbers in the format major.minor[.patch] (this is CFBundleShortVersionString); a formal build version, shown in parenthesis (e.g. “(3)”) which is a nonzero positive decimal integer unique and larger (but not necessarily exactly sequential) for each review-release to the App Store within the scope of the marketing version (this is CFBundleVersion); and (4) an additional informal version check value shown in hexadecimal (this is a 12-bit counter incremented every build).
Your messages are not stored permanently
Any collection, transmittal (other than as described below), or any permanent storage of your messages (or anything else) by the App is unintended and purely coincidental. While the following is believed to not be the case, you are hereby advised that malfunctions in the Apple watchOS operating system (the “watchOS”) or the App might result in such unintended transmittal or storage.
The only designed means of message storage is a scrolling historical set of messages sent and messages received. This set of messages (the “Conversation”) is not saved to (is not stored in) mass storage and is not sent via any networking protocol. Thus, if the maximum number of messages is exceeded, then the oldest messages are deleted; if the App is deleted, then all messages are deleted, where “deleted” refers to standard watchOS deletion APIs and not to any heroic forensic post-hoc efforts which might be made, such as by law enforcement or other fourth parties. The maximum number of messages of all types (sent as well as received (from any party)) which is designed to be stored in the Conversation is 100 decimal.
Content transmitted by SharkShout is fully visible
You see and hear everything that is done. Nothing is done in secret.
Messages (as visible on the Main Screen in the Conversation area) are the only content transmitted by the App.
The only instance(s) that a message transmission is initiated is when you give a command to do so; the App will not do so “by itself”.
The only means of message transmission are:
- A one-time large scrolling (“Marquee”) visual display on the message-initiator’s (message author’s) Apple Watch, intended for direct display to other divers; and
- A simultaneous, one-time, emission of a sequence of audio tones, intended for reception and decoding by other copies of the App running on other Apple Watches, or alternatively, spoken text-to-speech
The App requires the use of the Apple Watch speaker(s) in order to encode and play messages as audible tones.
Correspondingly, the App also requires the use of the Apple Watch microphone to listen for tones which it can decode back into messages from copies of the App running on other Apple Watches. This functionality is highly experimental. This functionality is not expected to work without external amplification hardware. This functionality is provided for entertainment purposes only.
The only media type supported by the App is text, whose alphabet consists of upper-case Latin text, Arabic numerals, the space, a few basic symbols, and two emojis.
Nothing is sent via the Internet — not via WiFi, not via the cellular network, nor otherwise — nor via Bluetooth, nor via any other networking protocol. This is true even when SharkShout is running while the Apple Watch is in air (not submerged).
Your messages are public
Messages that you send using SharkShout are like things you say in public.
The messages as transmitted by the audio tones are not cryptographically scrambled — although they are encoded using a simple entropy and dictionary compression scheme, and may be sent using one of several semi-independent sets of tone frequencies (“channels”). The audio form of the messages are “broadcast” (or “party line”) in dispersal scope, and — although unlikely due to the highly experimental and technically difficult nature of underwater wireless communication — your message could theoretically be received by another party running the App or other compatible software.
In addition, the visible Marquee form of the messages can be seen by anyone who is in a position to view your Apple Watch.
There is explicitly no design nor expectation of privacy whatsoever in messages sent using the App. Indeed, a lack of privacy (that is, making your message manifest to as many as possible) is an explicit (safety) feature of, and reason for using, the App.
The Conversation, as stored in app memory, is also not encrypted. While not expected to be accessible by other apps, per standard Apple watchOS inter-process security, this cannot be guaranteed by the App Developer. After 100 messages they will have scrolled beyond the top and they will then deleted, or they will all be deleted if you force-quit the App, uninstall the App, or reboot or reset your Apple Watch.
Your location is not saved or sent anywhere
Although the App requires the use of the Location Services part of the watchOS in order to periodically display the compass heading in the upper left hand corner, neither your heading nor your location is ever transmitted or saved.
Your motion activity is not saved or sent anywhere
Although the App requires the use of the motion services part of the watchOS in order to detect the wiggle-clockwise, wiggle-counterclockwise, and thrust-down gestures which are interpreted by the App as scrolling commands, none of this information is ever transmitted or saved.
Your biometrics are not saved or sent anywhere
The App does not use biometrics data (e.g. heart rate, pulse oximetry, etc). None of this information is ever used, nor transmitted or saved.
Your true identity is not saved or sent anywhere
Your user identity, which is displayed on the Marquee and transmitted as part of the audio, is not your actual name; instead, it is one of 8 (7 names plus DiveMaster) fixed, ad-hoc, nicknames chosen by you in the SharkShout settings screen.
Your data is not shared with anyone
Neither your settings nor your conversations are saved or stored or sent (transmitted) anywhere, other than in local application memory and visual and aural transmission upon user demand only. No network or mass storage “write” watchOS API calls are made anywhere in SharkShout.
How long your data is retained
Only the last 100 messages sent or received are stored (in application memory).
Deleting the SharkShout app will thus delete all recent messages as well. However, no mitigations or guarantees are made regarding any forensic efforts by third of fourth parties to retrieve such data.
Rights you have over your data
Deleting the SharkShout app should delete the entire Conversation, as seen from your end.
However, any messages which you sent and which were successfully received by others will remain on those others’ Conversations, and are no longer under your control. Only those others will be able to delete those messages (by deleting their App or by receiving more than 100 new messages).
As stated earlier, note that the Channels offered by the App are to be considered “party lines”: they are public in nature. That is, any nearby SharkShout user will theoretically be able to receive all messages sent by any other SharkShout user on that Channel. In practice, this is expected to be rare, due to the difficult and highly experimental nature of underwater data transmission.
Hold Harmless
You acknowledge that SCUBA diving, “SNUBA” diving, “free” diving, “snorkeling”, or swimming, whether in a swimming pool, motion picture production or photography tank, exhibition aquarium, recreational waterpark, river, lake, reservoir, beach, sea, ocean, or any other container or body of water or liquid, is inherently dangerous and may lead to serious injury or death. You acknowledge that the App is highly experimental in nature, and may not perform as expected. You acknowledge that the Apple Watch Ultra is not necessarily considered a true diving device, and may not perform as expected. You agree to hold harmless Ben A. Koning, Johan H. Koning, Shelly N. Koning, Redwines Garage, its principals, employees, contractors, associates, vendors, service providers, investors, and assigns, for any direct or incidental damages to yourself or others, including death, injury, illness, lost wages, lost opportunities, property damage, emotional distress, or disappointment with expectations. You certify that you have had proper and generally-recognized professional instruction and certification in SCUBA diving.
Not a Dive Computer
The SharkShout Apple Watch application program is a messaging program. Its purpose is to assist the user in sending and receiving simple messages for entertainment purposes while engaging in recreational SCUBA diving.
The SharkShout Apple Watch application program is not a “Dive Computer”, as colloquially known. Extra information, including but not limited to water depth, water temperature, breathing gas amount remaining, dive time, compass heading, diver nitrogen loading mitigation procedures, nitrogen narcosis mitigation procedures, overhead environment mitigation procedures, entrapment mitigation procedures, navigation procedures, and more, are necessary to dive safely and are either not furnished by SharkShout, or are only furnished incidentally or informally. The App does not provide any information to properly and robustly assist in any of the necessary procedures of diving. By using the App, you acknowledge that you are properly equipped with external equipment, including a proper “Dive Computer” as necessary, and that you are properly trained to dive.
Only intended for the Apple Watch Ultra
While the App will operate on any recent Apple Watch, the App’s actual underwater use is solely intended for use on the Apple Watch Ultra or any future Apple Watch which is similarly sufficiently waterproof for the actual depth to which the user may expose their Apple Watch. By using the App, you acknowledge that exposing an Apple Watch to a depth for which it is not rated can result in its permanent damage which might not be covered by your Apple Watch’s warranty.
Experimental and Entertainment use only
The App software is experimental in nature. Electronic underwater communication is inherently difficult and is the subject of much ongoing research. Additionally, the Apple Watch Ultra hardware and operating system are mainly designed as a unit to be a dry-land timepiece and personal digital assistant; its primary function is not intended to be a robust piece of underwater equipment. As such, the Apple Watch Ultra has numerous behaviors which are inappropriate for the task of diving, including, but not limited to, of transitioning into sleep mode often, and of not having particularly outstanding underwater acoustic performance. For these reasons, the App is only to be regarded and used experimentally and recreationally — at most as an adjunct to standard SCUBA hand-signal communication. The App must never be relied upon for communication, navigation, or any other information, in planning, performance, or safe completion of your dives.
For any kind of reasonable underwater acoustic communication performance, additional underwater hardware which amplifies the Apple Watch Ultra’s audio speaker output is required. However, because of the App’s Marquee display, some future additional audio features, the relative ease of do-it-yourself construction of the above hardware, and the entertainment value of its audio communication performance in air, the App is nevertheless useful for entertainment communication and is therefore being released.
Documentation Inaccuracies
The information in this document is believed to be correct. However, by the combined acts of reading this document and using the SharkShout Watch application program, you agree to hold the authors of the SharkShout Watch application program harmless for any errors or omissions.
Disclaimer
REDWINES GARAGE, BEN A. KONING, JOHAN H. KONING, SHELLY N. KONING, SHARKSHOUT, AND ANY OF THESE PARTIES’ EMPLOYEES, CONTRACT EMPLOYEES, AND PRINCIPALS, HEREBY DECLARE AND ASSERT THAT NO WARRANTY, PROMISE, OR PREDICTION OF ANY KIND IS EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED REGARDING THE FUNCTIONALITY, PERFORMANCE, FITNESS, QUALITY, ERGONOMICS, COMPLETENESS, ENJOYABILITY, OR SUITABILITY OF THE SHARKSHOUT APPLE WATCH APPLICATION FOR ANY PURPOSE OR ACTIVITY WHATSOEVER. BY THE ACT OF INSTALLING AND USING THE SHARKSHOUT APPLE WATCH APPLICATION, YOU AGREE THAT YOU WILL NOT HOLD THE AFOREMENTIONED PARTIES TO ANY PERFORMANCE STANDARD. ADDITIONALLY, YOU AGREE TO REFRAIN FROM HOLDING THE AFOREMENTIONED PARTIES’ SUBCONTRACTORS, VENDORS, AND SERVICE PROVIDERS TO ANY STANDARD OF FITNESS FOR THE TASK, DEVICE, OR SOFTWARE IN WHICH THEY ARE EMBEDDED. THE SHARKSHOUT APPLE WATCH APPLICATION IS NOT A “DIVE COMPUTER” AND IS ONLY TO BE USED FOR ENTERTAINMENT AND EXPERIMENTAL PURPOSES. THE ACTIVITIES FOR WHICH THE SHARKSHOUT APPLE WATCH APPLICATION IS HEREBY EXPLICITLY STATED TO NOT BE SUITABLE FOR INCLUDE, BUT ARE NOT LIMITED TO, UNDERWATER COMMUNICATION, NAVIGATION, GAS SUPPLY MANAGEMENT, GAS MIXTURE MANAGEMENT, NITROGEN LOAD MANAGEMENT AND PLANNING, ENTRAPMENT MITIGATION, DIVE PLANNING, GROUP DIVE TOUR COORDINATION, DIVE INSTRUCTION, AND ANY OTHER TASKS INHERENT IN SCUBA DIVING, “SNUBA” DIVING, FREE DIVING, SNORKELING, OR SWIMMING.
SharkShout Versions
This is the SharkShout Documentation and Privacy Policy and Disclaimers Version 5; the date of last modification is 5-August-2024.
The current SharkShout Apple Watch App version is 1.5 build 1.
To see the version of the SharkShout Apple Watch App, go to SharkShoutWatchApp > SettingsMenuOnTopLeftToolBarAreaToTheLeftOfTheTriangle > Info > BottomOfInfoScreen.
The SharkShout privacy policy topics above are also available here for the Apple App Store to reference; for WordPress and AppStore compatibility reasons that page is in low contrast.
There is also a SharkShout iPhone App available, called “SharkShout II”.