The Palms Commons

Keeping up with Indian Palms means checking a half dozen different places, and none of them talk to each other. Association notices go on one website. Events go somewhere else, or nowhere. The club posts its lineup and its menus as pictures, so the date and the band and Tuesday's special exist only as pixels and no search will ever find them. Half the time you hear about something days after it happened, from a neighbor, in a parking lot. The Palms Commons puts all of it in one list, in date order. WHAT'S IN IT Association notices, gathered as they're published, so you don't have to remember to go look. When more than one association posts about the same thing, such as a gate closure or a festival weekend, their notices arrive as one story, with each association's original a tap away. Events, including the ones that only ever existed as a poster. The app reads the picture and turns it into a real listing you can find by day. A single poster holding a week of specials and three bands becomes eight separate entries, each one searchable. Menus too, so Thursday night's post is still findable on Saturday when you're deciding where to eat. Severe weather, sent immediately and printed in the National Weather Service's own words, unedited. Local weather and air quality, and what's on nearby. A short read on what people around here are talking about this week: the subjects and the general mood, so you get the temperature of the place without scrolling through every post. No resident's name appears in it. The Commons Monthly. Once a month, the month written up: what the boards decided, what the paperwork said, and what neighbors spent the month talking about. THROUGH THE YEAR The Halloween Treats & Decor Map. See which homes are handing out treats or are decorated, get walking directions, and tick off the ones you've visited. Add your own home from your front door. Every pin is deleted the morning after Halloween. The holiday golf cart parade. In December, follow the parade on a map, see how long until it reaches you, and keep the countdown on your Lock Screen. For parade organizers: the phone leading the parade shares its location in the background, with the screen locked, until you tap Stop. Like any GPS running in the background, that uses more battery than usual. NOTIFICATIONS THAT RESPECT YOU Things don't arrive here one at a time, so nothing gets sent the instant it appears. Updates are gathered and sent together as one message. Severe weather is the exception and goes straight out. Spray schedules and pool hours don't count as alerts no matter how urgent they sound. WHAT THIS IS NOT This app is not official. It is not endorsed by, affiliated with, or connected to any homeowners association, board, management company, or the country club. It was built by a resident. Everything in it was already published publicly by the people who published it, and the app gathers it into one place. It is free. There are no ads, no subscriptions, no in-app purchases, and no accounts. Nothing about you is sold, and nothing is used to track you. Very little leaves your phone, such as a notification token if you turn notifications on, or a pin if you add your home to the Halloween map. The privacy policy, linked under More in the app, lists every one. COVERAGE IPMA and IPCCA, plus the club and local listings. More can be added. If your association publishes its notices somewhere reachable, get in touch and I'll look at including it.