Locale Feedback Forum

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  1. 623 votes

    Not on Conditions

    Ability to have NOT on conditions. This is most useful for location (e.g. leaving a location).

    by anonymous | 52 comments
    Status: under review

    The original request here was for a logical NOT operator, although it doesn't make sense to create a logical NOT operator in Locale. Most of the time, NOT isn't the right way of thinking about a Condition. For example, NOT 9 am to 5 pm could be redefined as 5pm to 9am. NOT at work would simply be the Default situation. For the other conditions built-in to Locale, thinking about the problem in a different way usually means that NOT isn't needed. If a Condition truly needs NOT logic, then that should probably be put into the individual Condition's UI itself rather than as part of the Edit Situation screen in Locale.

    Although this request is for a NOT operator, I believe the underlying request here is a way of detecting the transition between situations. The strongest use case would be detecting when you've left a particular Location. While Locale can easily detect the transition between situations, providing a UI to allow the user to do something with that transition is extremely complex.

    Today, Locale treats situations as a continuous event. When Locale determines that a situation is active, it applies that situation's settings. When leaving a situation, a lower priority situation's settings take precedence (usually the Defaults). This provides a single, consistent behavior that makes Locale easy to understand.

    One suggested implementation is to have "On Enter" and "On Exit" settings within a situation. On Enter settings would work like the current settings within Locale, while On Exit would be applied when leaving a situation. But what if the On Exit settings of a situation are in conflict with the On Enter settings of a higher-priority situation? The number of arrangements that the user must think about has just doubled.

    We're still evaluating ways to solve the underlying requeste of "leaving a location", without making the UI too complicated...

    Carter Admin
  2. 253 votes

    Configurable Location Polling/Refresh/Update Frequency

    Increase / manually set location polling, either in the settings or between a set of time.

    This is very handy for alarms based on location, especially when snoozing on the train home.

    by Korneel Wever | 28 comments
    Status: started

    Update: The design and implementation of the location detection speed enhancements to Locale are underway, although we don't have any specific release schedule to announce at this time. As with all enhancements to Locale, we're also testing the enhancements extensively to make sure they work great!

    ---------

    By design, Locale has no user-configurable options. The goal is that Locale should "just work" without requiring users to fiddle with various options that could negatively impact the operation of the app. For example, asking Locale to check your location every minute could cause your battery to drain within 2 hours at which point you might miss the train stop anyway.

    Although a user-configurable option won't be implemented, I see the underlying goal here as improving how quickly Locale detects that your location has changed. Today, it may take up to 10 minutes. Future versions of Locale will reduce this delay significantly.

    I'm therefore repurposing this request for implementing improvements to the speed of the location detection system. Once these improvements are completed, a user-configurable update frequency will no longer be necessary.

    Carter Admin
  3. 191 votes

    Backup settings.

    Add a function to back everything up via either SD card or the web.

    by RAG1 | 27 comments
    Status: started

    Backup and restore is now available as a beta feature in Locale 1.0.5. This feature is disabled by default, and must be enabled by following the instructions below.

    After backups are enabled, a new Backup menu item will appear under the menu of the Locale home screen. From that menu item, you can create a backup to the phone's SD card. When Locale is re-installed, it will automatically detect any existing backups and ask whether you'd like to restore them.

    A few notes:
    - The enabler must be installed to enable restore functionality. If you wipe your phone, don't forget to reinstall the enabler.
    - The SD card must be present and available to Android. Backup and restore will be unavailable if the SD card is mounted on your computer via USB.
    - After performing a backup, you'll have to manually disable and then enable Locale from the menu to get Locale running again

    Please let us know if you experience any issues with the backup/restore system, but please note that we can't provide any support for this feature because it is a beta

    HOW TO ENABLE BACKUPS
    1. Allow installing apps outside of the Android Market
    a. Go to the Android Settings
    b. Tap on Applications
    c. Tap on Unknown sources

    2. Install Backup Enabler
    a. Open the web browser on your phone
    b. Go to this address: www.twofortyfouram.com/backup.apk
    c. Once the download completes, tap on the download
    d. Follow the instructions to install

    Carter Admin
  4. 34 votes

    Wait to switch bluetooth off (on time condition) BUT WAIT 'TIL CALL IS OVER!

    Happened yesterday: I was calling my girlfriend over my bluetooth headset and while I was speaking, the time condition switched bluetooth off.

    Well, the call continued, but she wondered what I was doing

    by Chris | 7 comments
    Status: planned
  5. 31 votes

    create a "polite" mode that allows for receiving conditions from external sources!

    I wonder how feasible this is, of course. But it would be very futuristic of you to have a mode in which your phone configures its settings (with user permission, of course) to match the "configuration" of a place.

    Imagine not having to worry about turning your phone off at the theater... more

    by 5yearwinter | 5 comments
    Status: planned

    We've had some interesting plans in this area... But nothing to announce yet...

    Carter Admin
  6. 28 votes

    Speed Condition

    A condition to detect the current speed the phone is moving.

    This could be used to detect when the phone is moving by a vehicle, such as when the user is driving.

    by Carter | 1 comment
    Status: under review

    Calling this a true "driving" condition would be a misnomer, as a number of other factors would actually be used to guess that the user was driving. This request would simply detect the speed at which the phone is moving.

    There are two ways currently to detect when the phone is in a car: a car dock condition or a Bluetooth condition, both of which are available now as plug-ins on the Android Market.

    We've been investigating an implementation for a "speed" condition, and we're confident we can create a reliable and low-power consumption implementation. There are just a number of considerations to take into account before doing so. After reading all of the comments, it appears that there are several different goals that users have in mind. Let's look at a few of them:

    1. Power savings: some users want to enable Bluetooth in the car and disable Bluetooth everywhere else. Unfortunately a speed condition would consume far more power than Bluetooth, so users are much better off simply leaving Bluetooth on all the time. Scratch this one off the list.

    2. Safety/regulatory: some users want to turn the ringer off while driving, due to distracted driving safety and regulatory considerations. For this, there are some considerations:

    First, how quickly would users expect Locale to detect a change in speed? The more quickly Locale detects a change in speed, the greater the impact on battery life. If the "speed" condition drains the battery in 4 hours, it doesn't do anyone any good. Based on our research, there may be up to a 10 minute delay before speed changes can be detected. Would such a delay reduce the usefulness of a speed condition?

    What about the reverse? How quickly would users expect the driving condition to deactivate once they stopped driving? Would it be annoying that you wouldn't receive phone calls for 10+ minutes after you got out of the car? And how would users expect this condition to behave in bumper-to-bumper traffic? If the phone is moving at a slow speed for a long period of time, the speed condition might deactivate.

    3. Finally, there are probably some other creative uses for a speed condition besides just to detect driving... Let's hear them!

    Carter Admin
  7. 20 votes

    Duplicate situation

    This suggestion was previously raised, and closed because it appeared that one of the reasons for it was satisfied with OR. However, that is not the case. It would be tremendously helpful to be able to duplicate an existing Situation in order to create a new situation that is just slightly diff... more

    by danapple0 | 0 comments
    Status: planned

    This will be supported by a new feature added in Locale 1.3. It won't be pretty, but it'll satisfy this feature request!

    I'll update this with more information when Locale 1.3 is released.

    Carter Admin
  8. 18 votes

    Conditions on hardware on/off

    Has the capabilities of checking if hardware is turned on or off.
    For example if I turn on the gps I want to do something automatically.
    If I turn on bluetooth do another and so on...

    by Daniele Amisano | 5 comments
    Status: under review

    Apps cannot immediately detect when GPS is enabled in the Android settings. There would have to be about a 10 minute delay, which I don't think would be acceptable in this particular case. (There just aren't any facilities in Android for such notification)

    Apps can detect Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Airplane mode being changed instantly.

    Carter Admin
  9. 6 votes

    Clarify the donation situation

    At http://www.twofortyfouram.com/notes.html you say "Although Locale is now a paid app on the Android Market, we are donating to charitable organizations!" Please clarify. Can we choose where our money goes? How much of the $10 goes to charity?

    by km3k | 1 comment
    Status: started

    Since the launch of Locale 1.0, we've been committed to giving back by donating to charitable organizations. Being a goal oriented company, we'll be working with charities on a project basis. In other words, our donations will be earmarked for a specific project so that we can measure our progress and produce tangible results.

    After listening to feedback from users and doing our own research, I'm excited to announce that we're working with Water Missions International www.watermissions.org for our first project. The goal is to raise $30,000 to implement a complete safe water project for a community in either Haiti or Africa. And we're already making good headway towards completing that project.

    I'm leaving this feedback item open, because we're working on providing more information about our charitable project via a blog on our website soon, although it'll be a little while longer before the blog infrastructure is completed.

    Carter Admin
  10. 5 votes

    Feature a link in the UI to a list of user-submitted uses

    I can think of a handful of obvious solutions, but I'm sure there are innovative ways of using Locale that might not occur to all of us. How about a user-submitted web-page (formatted for easy viewing on a handset) that lists various configurations and how they are helpful

    by nstoker | 0 comments
    Status: planned

    Good idea! This will be implemented once the UserVoice website becomes mobile friendly. In order to make that happen, consider adding some votes to UserVoice's own forum here http://feedback.uservoice.com/forums/1-product-feedback/suggestions/143027-develop-a-mobile-iphone-optimized-site?ref=title

    Carter Admin

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