Review: Better as a Kindle App
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 05 26, 2012
This is one of those good ideas that is not really suitable for the Kindle as the maps are colour and when rendered in greyscale on the Kindle are not all that easy to read it may have been better if a version specifically for the Kindle was produced in black and white which would have made readability better.However as a downloaded Kindle app on ipad, PC and Android tablet the maps were easily readable and looked so much better in colour.The theory is simple maps of the area are reproduced and overlaid with cross hatching of areas that have high levels of crime. There are also a number of tips on staying safe but there is little new here most are common sense but people forget so they are a useful reminder. My only reservation is that large areas are marked and this could discourage tourists from visiting some areas such as "China Town" in San Francisco where I may have been lucky but have wandered about there, camera hanging from my neck, at all hours and felt completely safe.As the author states areas of crime are not static and the areas marked on the map are not guaranteed to be up to date.Apart from the colour issue a number of things would have improved it for me, they are:-* The date when the information was compiled, often official figures are quite old.* What risk factor was used to determine unsafe areas (Muggings per number of population per year or some such measure)* When the risk factor was determined a number of different zones showing the different risk levels would have helped as I am sure not all of the areas were equally risky..I still think this is a good idea which could have been improved, but I have seen nothing as good. Incidentally the San Francisco version was a free download at the time I got it but my comments apply to all in this format.