When you’re in an important meeting, your phone ringing, or text chiming, or any alert going off could cause for serious embarrassment or worse, such as loss of income. If you have an Android phone, the Locale application can serve as a one-stop solution for potential problems where location is key to what can and cannot happen on your phone.
How Locale works
Locale offers a simple premise: You create situations based on specific conditions, and then your phone will react (or not, as the case may be) based on your configurations.
Locale can do a variety of things, including:
- Turn off the ringer.
- Turn off power hungry apps.
- Allow specific callers to ring through even if your ringer is off.
- Set location-based reminders.
There are also plug-ins that allow Locale to expand to meet even more of your needs.
(Screenshot image credit: two forty two a.m.)
Who is Locale’s target market?
Locale is a useful tool for business power users, as well as every day users. For instance, consider the possibility of forgetting to turn off your ringer in a theatre or a movie, or your child getting their phone taken away because it went off in school (this happened to my kid).
Standout features
In addition to the features I’ve already described, Locale offers these outstanding features:
- GPS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Accelerometer aware.
- Can launch Android scripts.
- Easy setup.
- Create as many situations as you need.
What problems does it solve?
Locale solves the issue of needing your Android phone to behave in specific ways based on certain criteria. The user sets the criteria and then sets the behavior, and Locale ensures this happens.
What’s wrong?
Locale’s biggest issue is the GPS connection. Anyone who relies on a GPS-aware application knows that satellites cannot get a fix on your phone at all times in all locations. Because of this reality, Locale can have issues reacting to locations if your phone position cannot be detected due to interference from buildings, weather, etc.
The other problem with Locale is how much it costs. At $10.99, Locale is far from the cheapest app in the Android Market. Most users are okay with paying under $5.00 for such applications, but this price range puts Locale out of reach for the average smartphone user.
Bottom line for business
If you’re an Android power user and you want your phone to react to various situations (to keep you from the ever-present threat of embarrassment), then you should try this application. Locale should work like a charm if your Android phone never has problem with its GPS. However, if you do have problems with your phone’s GPS or the app doesn’t work as well as you would like, you’ll probably feel frustrated that you paid so much for it.
For the most part, Locale does what it claims and that will save your skin more often than not.
User rating
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That, and a decent app that automagically turns on speakerphone when you set it down with the screen up during a call. 
