User Centered

this is really nice to see you are still posting here. i remember your posts you mention here. idea of location aware task list is one of _many_ alternative data sorting styles we mind find useful. imagine bunch of things to 'be done before i go to...'. this is still a huge conceptual work to be done before we leave simple calendars behind, but, hey, my excitement is here, too. :)
have a good 2009, eddie,
adam

ps. also, good thoughts for others who contribute here. :) will be checking user centered more often.

EDIT: you may want to have a look at what mozilla is doing http://labs.mozilla.com/2008/10/introducing-geode/

Ah. I do have Locale on my phone. I do not use it.

The problem is not Locale's but a phone fundamental -- battery power.

So, how do I respond: power management.

If the phone is fully powered (using all power intensive activities), it does not make it through the day. That's unacceptable.

However, with GPS off and Wifi off (separate from 3G/Edge), I can make it through the day with my average call usage. My bluetooth is out of action so I'm not sure how it would behave with that additional power drain.

So, Locale is, for me, most powerful with the location specificity available only to GPS. Yes, I can use 'cell tower' location but I don't want my cell phone turning off the ringer because I'm within 1km of a job or whatever the range is on cell phone towers... I think it's more than that. A quick check on my phone and it gives me a circle with a diameter of arpx 1500m. Just about a mile.

So, if I happen to goto lunch within a mile of my work my ringer stays off? You see where the returns are quickly diminishing.

There are time, date, etc. options but at that point it's just easier for me to manage.

If it monitored my cell tower location and if it looked like I moved updated my GPS every 5 minutes (and updated it anyway every hour) I bet I'd have the battery life to make it worthwhile but it simply isn't that advanced.

For clarity, I've tried leaving GPS on and it just zaps my battery down to zero in an hour or two.

In other words, it's a great idea but it's implementation can't make up for the phone's shortcoming. (Though my suggested periodic GPS updating would probably make up for it, that would be a nice workaround)

Alas... the future isn't quite here yet.

Yum

ugh. I figured "always on" gps was still a ways off. But we'll get there shortly I'm sure.

Agreed, Eddie.

Though I realized one other technical hurdle. It's major from my POV.

My phone prefers latest location data over specific location data.

Sounds harmless enough. Until you're inside a parking garage and suddenly GPS is no longer working. My phone searches for cell towers, disregarding the last (nearly accurate) GPS coordinates for a wide radius. (it centers on cell tower location)

So, if you work in an office building, your coordinates suddenly jump outside because you don't have GPS line-of-sight.

This behavior has frustrated me more than once when simply trying to navigate using Google Maps and my current location.

To correct this I can only imagine a more robust location awareness intelligence needs to be programmed which balances location specificity with timeliness.

Yum

When Connection is lost, store last known location/time combo.

if last know location is within the current cell tower radius, use last known location, else use current cell tower location.

That'd be nice.