MYRTLE BEACH, SC  – The Grand Strand and Pee Dee’s most popular news app is getting even better!

Our WBTW News13 Mobile News app is getting some of your most requested upgrades, providing you with more ways to customize the news and weather you receive each day.

First, your feedback has been amazing. We’ve read all your emails,reviews and listened to your voicemails. Over the past several months, we’ve been hard at work to bring all the things you’ve said are important to you to this update.

If you already have our app, you’re going to love the updates in this latest version.

If you’ve never downloaded our app before, this is your chance to experience a news app backed by the Grand Strand and Pee Dee’s premiere news station. By downloading, you’ll join a group of people just like you…people who want to be informed of the latest breaking news, weather and live events happening each day.

Here are the highlights of the changes we’ve made to enhance your experience in our app.

CUSTOMIZED WEATHER

Weather fans rejoice! You said you wanted to be able to tailor the weather information to your area. You got it. Once you update to the latest version of our app, you will have two different ways of tailoring the weather to your liking.

Under the settings section, you’ll click the weather tab. You will then be able to choose to have the weather tailored to the GPS location of your phone or by Zip Code.

  • Weather by GPS is great if you like to travel and take our app with you or if you live in one city and travel to work in another.
  • The option to set the weather by a specific zip code is helpful for those that always want to know the weather their home or office.

No matter which one you choose, you can always hop back into the settings and change it if you decide you’d prefer one set of weather information more than another. The choice is now yours. Weather is now ‘On Your Side.’

PERSONALIZED PUSH ALERTS

You asked for personalized push alerts, and we’re happy to say we’re delivering on your request.

Under the current version of our app, if you opted into ‘push alerts’ you would receive every alert we sent out. For many of you, this was great. But some of you told us that while you love being the first to know about some things, there are just some things you didn’t have an interest in receiving in alert form. In some cases, you’ve been very honest and told us you were turning off all ‘push alerts’ as a result. If you’ve done that, we know this new functionality will entice you to turn them back on.

With the latest version of our WBTW News app, you’ll now have the ability to tailor the alerts you receive by category of news. We asked many of you what types of content you like and don’t like.

  • We pulled together an awesome list that includes 8 specific categories of alerts.
  • Now, you choose which types of stories/alerts you receive.
  • You can opt in/out of any category at any time.
  • You can tailor the alerts you receive by clicking on the settings section and selecting the “notifications” tab.
  • The power is in your hands.

QUIET TIME

Quiet time has been, by far, one of the most requested items you’ve asked us to add to our news app. We totally agreed with you and thought it was an awesome idea, so we built it for you. When enabled, no push notifications from our WBTW News App will be delivered to you.

With personalized push alerts, you get to choose what types of stories you receive. Now, you can define when those alerts come in. If you’ve opted to receive any of our push alerts, like breaking news, you will not receive them during the time you set for your quiet time.

Your safety is important to us. Please keep in mind, if you set quiet times — you will not receive any severe weather alerts we send out on our news app (if you’ve opted into those types of alerts).Our news app is on your side 24/7. While it never sleeps, we know your sleep is important to you. We also understand that push alerts are very personal and immediate. Receiving alerts late at night, overnight or early in the morning can be an interruption of your sleep. For that reason, we already exercise extreme caution with any alerts we send out between 11 p.m. and 5:00 a.m. We reserve this time for urgent weather alerts or major breaking news that could immediately impact you.

REPORTING BREAKING NEWS 

Virtually every day we get asked how you can send us breaking news photos, videos and story tips.

We’ll be the first to admit the “Send It” section of our current app was a bit tough to navigate. Our team spent the time to make some important tweaks to the design of this section to make sending us stories and breaking events much easier. Now, it’s simply a few clicks and hit send. You can add photo/video with one click. You can even call the station by hitting the ‘call station’ button. Yup, it’s that easy. If you accidentally enter the section and don’t have anything to report, simply click the ‘cancel’ button.

You send us hundreds of messages, news tips and breaking news every day, so thank YOU for being on our side.

UPDATE YOUR WBTW NEWS APP TODAY

If you already have our app, simply head to your iOS or Google Play store and update to the latest version to start enjoying all these incredible updates.

If you don’t already have our app or if you had it and removed it, this is a great time to give it a second chance. We know you won’t regret it. You can follow the download link below to get connected.