PanicButton is a N900 application for letting people know where you are right now. Perhaps you are a democracy advocate about to be abducted by the secret police. Perhaps you are an invalid and you have injured yourself. Perhaps you are the hare in a runners hash. PanicButton is for you.

PanicButton is easy to use. First, be sure that your GPS is on and locked onto the satellites. You can use the built-in GPS receiver or an external Bluetooth receiver. Next, you choose any number of your contacts to message via SMS. Then you set your panic message. From then on, whenever you press the panic button, PanicButton sends your message plus your location to the contacts you selected.

PanicButton requires QtMobility.

PanicButton is available in extras-devel. The usual warnings apply.

PanicButton support is available at Maemo Garage and in this thread.

This is the first Maemo application that I have released. You have no idea how proud I am to give this to you all.

June 2, 2011: Version 0.5.0 released to extras-devel. Changes:

• First version that also runs on Symbian^3. Tested on a Nokia N8. One known bug: Does not work if any of your contacts have PNG avatars. This is QtMobility bug QTMOBILITY-1647.
• Better behavior during out-of-memory conditions
• Button text resizes itself after a change of handset orientation

May 16, 2011: Version 0.4.4 works as desired. The help file is installed in /opt/usr/share/doc/panicbutton/. One known bug: It takes a long time to delete a contact. This is QtMobility bug QTMOBILITY-1507.

May 15, 2011: Version 0.4.3 fixed the mistake in version 0.4.2 and introduced a new one: the help file it installs to /usr/share/doc/panicbutton/ is purged by docpurge.

May 15, 2011: Version 0.4.2 was intended to fix the mistake in version 0.4.1. It failed. I am now officially package-creation-challenged. Watch this space. I'll post when it's safe to download version 0.4.2.

May 5, 2011: Don't install version 0.4.1. A mistake in its desktop file prevents it from running from the application menu. You can run it manually from xterm. Expect an update that corrects the problem in a day or two.

May 2, 2011: Version 0.4.1 released to extras-devel. Changes:

• Now listed in the correct application section: user/communication
• Option to delete all contacts when the panic button is pressed.
• Help file explains deleting contacts
• Help file cautions that the phone is susceptible to forensic analysis after contacts have been deleted

Planned enhancements include

• Internationalization: Arabic, Farsi
• Optionally erasing contacts and calendar when the panic button is pressed Added in version 0.4.1
• Periodic messages beginning when the panic button is pressed and ending when it is pressed a second time
• Monitoring the contacts manager for changes to selected contacts
• Status messages while PanicButton is initializing
• Sending messages via other services such as Jabber and AIM