Ship's Bell vs APRS Mobile
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Ship's Bell
This app provides traditional seafaring time signals and a tide clock. It allows users to track time acoustically without needing to check their device, mimicking historical maritime practices for duty watches and tide estimations.
- Traditional seafaring time signals
- Acoustic timekeeping
- Tide clock functionality
- Maritime 24-hour clock face
- GMT display
- Customizable chime sounds
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Ship's Bell is primarily an acoustic clock that sounds half-hourly or hourly time signals. Without taking the phone out of your pocket you can easily keep track of time. The principle of this bell was founded in traditional seafaring. Seafarers used the bell to keep track of their four-hourly duty watches. The first half hour is signaled by a single bell strike. Another bell strike is added every half hour, ending with eight bell strikes. To hear the bell strikes better, they are grouped into double chimes. Eight bell strikes signaled a watch change – at midnight, 4 am, 8 am, 12 pm, 4 pm and 8 pm. With just eight different signals, being repeated in six cycles during the day, you will know what time it is every half and full hour. • Ship's bell according to the seafaring tradition • Two different kinds of chimes: classic bell or a modern synthesized sound • Option to strike only once each hour • Two different chimes for hourly signals: a single beep or a triple signal counting down to the full hour • Displays the current time on a maritime 24-hour clock face • Shows Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) • Switch to quickly enable or disable the acoustic signals A new addition in version 3.0 is the Tide Clock. An additional clock hand and a tide ring can now be activated on the two dials of the glass clock (12-hour or 24-hour dial). This makes it possible to estimate the time until the next high or low tide in the style of a mechanical tide clock. The tide clock hand makes one revolution within 12 hours and 25 minutes independently of the hour clock hand and thus shows the average time between two high or low tides. The indices on the tide ring show the hours before and after a coming or past high or low tide. Dear customers, If there are any issues with this app, please send an email to our support team. We will get back to you as soon as possible!
APRS Mobile
This app provides Amateur Radio operators with a mobile interface to the Automatic Packet Reporting System (APRS). It allows users to beacon their position, view other operators on a map, and access weather data. Non-amateur operators can also monitor APRS activity globally.
- Real-time position mapping
- Beacon position in background
- Supports SmartBeaconing
- View weather station data
- Callsign SSID support
- Adjustable battery drain modes
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APRS Mobile connects your iPhone and iPad straight to APRS-IS, the internet side of the Automatic Packet Reporting System used by amateur radio operators worldwide. Watch the stations around you live, look up any station, message other hams and beacon your position. No account needed. Work over your own radio too — with a Bluetooth or network TNC, or with nothing but an audio cable and the built-in software modem. LIVE MAP • Stations appear the moment they're heard, with their APRS symbols and callsigns • Tracks, PHG circles and a Layers panel: fixed, mobile and weather stations, digipeaters, IGates and objects • Via: one control for every link — APRS-IS, TNC and software modem STATION DETAILS • Tap a station for a quick card, then its full page, updated live • Last heard, beacon prediction, digipath, comment and status • Position, Maidenhead grid, speed, course, altitude and distance from you • Current weather, plus weather and telemetry charts APRS MESSAGING • Chat with any station, with conversations and message bubbles • Messages go out over APRS-IS or straight over your radio; IGates carry them between the two • Automatic retries until acknowledged, with receipts • Notifications for messages to your callsign, even with the app closed • Block or report a station; offensive language is hidden behind a tap RADIO — TNC (OPTIONAL) • Connect a Mobilinkd TNC4, or a TNC3 on Bluetooth LE firmware, to send and receive over your own radio • Or reach a KISS TNC on your network: Direwolf on a Raspberry Pi, or a TNC on a serial-to-WiFi bridge • Choose how messages and beacons go out, and where map stations come from: radio, APRS-IS or both • Stays connected in the background, so beaconing and receiving carry on • Run a fill-in digipeater or an IGate from your phone • A TNC and a radio are separate purchases; everything else works without them RADIO — SOFTWARE MODEM (OPTIONAL) • No TNC required: with an audio cable your phone is the modem — 1200 baud APRS decoded from your radio's audio • Transmit through a radio set to VOX, with adjustable TX delay and level • A live spectrum with both tones marked, a level check in plain language and a clipping warning • Receiving needs no licence; transmitting is off until you confirm you hold one OFFLINE MAPS • Download OpenStreetMap-based maps for the areas you care about, and the map works with no network BEACONING • Four ways to beacon, from Settings or the map: off, SmartBeaconing, every so often, or fixed • SmartBeaconing beacons more often when moving fast or turning, less when slow or stopped • Fixed position suits a home station: type it in once, and no GPS is used • Carries on in the background when you allow it, with a low-power mode • Choose your APRS symbol, comment and position ambiguity AND MORE • Search for any callsign, city or zip code • An Apple Watch app: beacon, messages, nearby stations and weather graphs • Imperial, metric and nautical units, any APRS-IS server Receiving is free: anyone can watch APRS activity and weather stations. Transmitting — beacons, messages, the digipeater — needs APRS Mobile Transmit, a yearly auto-renewing subscription with the first month free. If you had APRS Mobile before version 1.4, transmitting stays free for you. It also requires an amateur radio license; over APRS-IS it needs the passcode for your callsign, and over the air it has to be switched on by hand. Terms: https://aprsmobile.app/terms Privacy: https://aprsmobile.app/privacy The software modem uses the microphone to hear your radio. The audio is decoded on your device, never recorded and never sent. Weather and telemetry history charts, and offline map downloads, come from openaprs.ai; everything else comes straight from APRS-IS or your radio. Offline map data © OpenStreetMap contributors. Positions you send can be seen on other APRS websites too. Continued use of GPS running in the background can dramatically decrease battery life. A live APRS-IS feed uses a lot of data.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: APRS Mobile at Free against Ship's Bell's $5.99. APRS Mobile also leads on rating (5.0 vs 3.0) and update cadence (weekly vs every 2 months). Ship's Bell's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 2) and chart position (#75 vs unranked). On ads, monetization model and device support there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
APRS Mobile is free to download; Ship's Bell costs $5.99 up front. APRS Mobile sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $1.99 per year. Ship's Bell asks for nothing beyond the download.
APRS Mobile holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 3.0. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 4 and 1 respectively. Written reviews complicate that: 53% of Ship's Bell's written reviews are positive against 44% of APRS Mobile's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
Ship's Bell ships an update every 2 months, APRS Mobile weekly. Both last shipped on November 1, 2026.
| Parameter | Ship's Bell | APRS Mobile |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $5.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 3.0 (4 ratings) | 5.0 (1 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 53.4% of reviews — better | 43.8% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 4 — better | 1 |
| Update frequency | Every 2 months | Weekly — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Paid | Paid |
| Best chart rank | #75 — better | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPod | iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch — better |
| Requires iOS | 14.5 — better | 18.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 25 MB | 36 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | +17 |
| Developer | Trimutic UG | OpenAPRS |
Customer experience
Ship's Bell
APRS Mobile
In-app purchases
Ship's Bell
No in-app purchases
APRS Mobile
- APRS Mobile Transmit1 Month trial$1.991 Year
- APRS Mobile Transmit Lifetime$9.99







