One of my go to Android apps is Llama. It is a free app that controls phone actions based on your location. There are other apps such as Tasker that can do the same thing. I haven't tried it though as Llama does everything I need it to do and it does it well.
After you download Llama it has four tabs on the home screen, areas, events, profiles and recent. You set up areas and they dictate what your phone does when it leaves or enters an designated area. So for me I have the areas, Church, Home and Work. You can define these areas by either WiFi, GPS or cell towers. I don't like to use GPS because I don't wan to leave my phone's GPS antenna on and I don't use cell towers because that covers to big an area for my taste.
That leaves WiFi. The WiFi settings are experimental you have to go through a couple of menu items to activate it. Go to the Events tab. Tap the 3 dots at the bottom right of the screen. Tap settings and scroll to Experimental Stuff here be dragons. Tap on that and then check the box next to Check for WiFi networks. Use the back arrow to exit the menu.
Profiles modify your phone volumes and can change your ringtones. You can also change the look of the Llama icon for each profile. When Llama is running the icon is visible in your notification area at the top. For me my silent profile is a red Llama. So I can glance at my phone and see the volume notifications quickly. If you want to switch to a profile, say when you go into a meeting, just tap it and you can even lock it to that profile for the amount of time you choose.
Finally events are things you want the phone to do at certain times and with certain triggers. For instance I have it set up so that when I get home it switches to the normal profile, disable the lock after unlocking and turn on haptic feed back. That way all the volumes are up and I don't have to unlock the phone every time I use it. I do have it setup to re-enable the lock screen when I leave home. I also have it setup so when I'm home and it's between 11pm and 6am it is completely silent. That way I will not hear any random notifications that could wake me. But at 6am it goes back to normal so I can hear my alarm.
You can have multiple conditions for each event based on different criteria such as entering a defined area, leaving an area, time of day or day of the week. Then you can have it do a wide variety of actions. I have not counted them all but a guess would put it around fifty in the list. You can change the profile, lock the screen, reboot the phone, shut off the WiFi and the list goes on. At one point I had it setup so that when I got home my phone would play the Imperial March from Star Wars.
It takes awhile to set it up but it is worth it. This has become one of my favorite apps and one I use every day, without even thinking about it because the app does it all for me. There are a million plus apps in the Google Play store. It is difficult to put together a top ten list or some sort of best of app list. There are so many apps that do similar things and not every one uses them the same or uses their phones the same. If you are looking for a good app to manage your phone in different situations then this is it.
Monday, November 10, 2014
Thursday, October 23, 2014
Why I'm not interested in the Nexus 6
The Nexus 6 has been officially announced. We know the specs, the manufacturer is Motorola and that it will go on sale in November with a starting price tag of $649. The new phone has some nice improvements over the Nexus 5, such as a better processor, bigger battery and better camera. At the end of the day though there is no compelling reason for me to want the Nexus 6 over my current phone, a Nexus 5.
There are a few reasons for this. I have used the Nexus 5 for several months now and it's been a great experience the entire time (except when I dropped it and broke the screen, for reference the screen is somewhat easy to replace yourself.) Not once have I looked at the phone and thought, "Gee, I wish I could upgrade or replace this." It has always been a fast responsive phone due to the combination of stock Android and beefy (at the time of it's release) specs. In fact I am pretty sure that when I switched to the ART run time from the Dalvik run time on the phone I noticed an increase in performance but more importantly battery life. This article gives a good comparison on the two run times http://blog.newrelic.com/2014/07/07/android-art-vs-dalvik/.
There are a only a couple things on the Nexus 6 that would make me want to buy it. The processor, a Snapdragon 805 is a step up from the Snapdragon 800 found on the Nexus 5. While the Nexus 5 is not at the top of the pack in benchmarks it is no slouch in real world use. Basically not a good enough reason. The other reason is the camera. The Nexus 6 has a 13MP camera, up from the 8MP camera on the Nexus 5. While a better camera is always nice, the Nexus 5 has taken pretty good pictures for me. I am not a shutter bug and I use it primarily to take family pictures. As long as they turn out decent I am pretty satisfied. Just like the processor bump it is not enough of a reason to make me want the Nexus 6.
There are a couple of things about the Nexus 6 itself that have completely turned off my interest in the phone. The first is screen size. Moving to a 6 inch screen is a little ridiculous at this point. Yes smart phones are mini computers but it still goes into your pocket or your purse or on a belt clip. Are we as a society going to accept and be comfortable with larger and larger mobile computing devices.
A second reason is the starting price tag. The 32gb model starts at $649. This is disappointing. Part of the appeal of getting a Nexus phone was the fact that it packs similar features and performance of competitor flagship phones without the same unlocked price tag. For instance I got the Nexus 5 for less than $400 while the HTC One (M8) starts at $700. Are there differences between the two phones? Sure, but is it worth the $300 difference? So instead of a flagship phone for budget minded people it is just another phablet.
From other comments I have seen online it looks like the Nexus 6 in general will have less mass appeal than the Nexus 5. Which is why it seems Google will continue to sell the Nexus 5 alongside the Nexus 6. All in all it appears that Google and Motorola have made a nice phone with the Nexus 6. However they have gone beyond the simple and affordable style that made the Nexus line appealing. Google has hopped on the bandwagon and entered the gaudy realm of phablets. For that I am truly disappointed.
There are a few reasons for this. I have used the Nexus 5 for several months now and it's been a great experience the entire time (except when I dropped it and broke the screen, for reference the screen is somewhat easy to replace yourself.) Not once have I looked at the phone and thought, "Gee, I wish I could upgrade or replace this." It has always been a fast responsive phone due to the combination of stock Android and beefy (at the time of it's release) specs. In fact I am pretty sure that when I switched to the ART run time from the Dalvik run time on the phone I noticed an increase in performance but more importantly battery life. This article gives a good comparison on the two run times http://blog.newrelic.com/2014/07/07/android-art-vs-dalvik/.
There are a only a couple things on the Nexus 6 that would make me want to buy it. The processor, a Snapdragon 805 is a step up from the Snapdragon 800 found on the Nexus 5. While the Nexus 5 is not at the top of the pack in benchmarks it is no slouch in real world use. Basically not a good enough reason. The other reason is the camera. The Nexus 6 has a 13MP camera, up from the 8MP camera on the Nexus 5. While a better camera is always nice, the Nexus 5 has taken pretty good pictures for me. I am not a shutter bug and I use it primarily to take family pictures. As long as they turn out decent I am pretty satisfied. Just like the processor bump it is not enough of a reason to make me want the Nexus 6.
There are a couple of things about the Nexus 6 itself that have completely turned off my interest in the phone. The first is screen size. Moving to a 6 inch screen is a little ridiculous at this point. Yes smart phones are mini computers but it still goes into your pocket or your purse or on a belt clip. Are we as a society going to accept and be comfortable with larger and larger mobile computing devices.
A second reason is the starting price tag. The 32gb model starts at $649. This is disappointing. Part of the appeal of getting a Nexus phone was the fact that it packs similar features and performance of competitor flagship phones without the same unlocked price tag. For instance I got the Nexus 5 for less than $400 while the HTC One (M8) starts at $700. Are there differences between the two phones? Sure, but is it worth the $300 difference? So instead of a flagship phone for budget minded people it is just another phablet.
From other comments I have seen online it looks like the Nexus 6 in general will have less mass appeal than the Nexus 5. Which is why it seems Google will continue to sell the Nexus 5 alongside the Nexus 6. All in all it appears that Google and Motorola have made a nice phone with the Nexus 6. However they have gone beyond the simple and affordable style that made the Nexus line appealing. Google has hopped on the bandwagon and entered the gaudy realm of phablets. For that I am truly disappointed.
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