Title: Locale
Developer: http://www.localeandroid.com
Available: Now, Android Market
Cost: FREE
Lasting Impression: We’ve always dreamed of the day where we didn’t have to worry about remembering to turn our ringer off at the movies and that day is upon us! Locale is the one of the greatest ideas we never thought of!
Nitty Gritty: Don’t let me over simplify, Locale is much more than a volume control for your phone. Locale gives you the freedom to think about work when on your way there without having to remember to update the wifi, change the ringer, or change the wallpaper from the picture of your buddy getting sick this weekend.
When you open Locale you have the option to set a new situation, manage situations, and configure defaults. I chose first to set my defaults. Here you set your ringtone volume, network preferences, ringtone, wallpaper, and twitter status. What I found out after closing Locale is that when it is running, your Locale preferences take precedent over your phone settings. That works for me because, that’s the point of this app.
After setting defaults you can name a new situation. You cans set Locale to change a setting base on battery strength, calendar, contact, location, and time. When you set location if pulls a map of your current location and gives a radius you can change to pinpoint when you want it to take place.
Once you have picked the conditions you pick settings. The settings are the same choices as the defaults you’ve picked. One example, I set my location for work and the time 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM. I changed the settings to vibrate for volume, the wifi to turn off because the my work doesn’t have wifi, my wallpaper to change to a generic one from the device and my twitter to say I’m at work.
The other option in Locale is to manage your settings. Here you can delete any situations you don’t need anymore. Also, within each situation you can change any setting without having to totally delete and then start a new one.
One thing I noticed was that locale doesn’t update as quickly as I liked. I found myself going into locale to trigger it to take affect or change settings. One reason could be is I do not have 3G in my area. When using a place that has wifi, however, Locale works perfect. Another thing that isn’t necessarily bad is that when setting up preferences for your contacts like ringtone and wallpaper, it gives way too many situations. I’ll have to mess around with setting them in Locale or my contact list to see which works better.
Locale has helped make my G1 the best phone I’ve ever carried. Everyone should have this app!!!
Don’t Just Take Our Word for It
Our friends over at AndroidApps has done their review as well and have included a few minutes worth of video. Take a look at their impressions of Locale.
Your Turn
What do you think of Locale? Have you played with it yet? Did our opinion help you form yours?
