Is this a joke? I remember this kind of application has been available for android since the G1, in fact when Google hosted some app contest to have some apps available on the launch of android one of the winners was that kind. That was 2008: https://developers.google.com/android/adc/adc_gallery/
I developed a similar app for a psychology research team. They needed a way to trigger certain things (sound recording, etc) when two certain people were in physical proximity. As it turns out, bluetooth bonjour discovery did the trick when they were in the same room. Over wifi, it got triggered sooner, once one of them enterred the building where the other one was (which corresponded to being on the same LAN).
The hard problem on iOS devices (iPod touch) was keeping them awake during this, so they could detect eac other. iOS likes to sleep while locked. Got a solution, which made the battery last around a day. I guess they're not using mobile to mobile peer triggers, but fixed-to-mobile and then deliver a notification. Interesting to see this popping up in commercial tech.
I was going to spin my code out into a infrastructure for spatial awareness triggers for various home automation tasks, but also couldn't find a killer use case. I'll be following this topic for ideas :)
I've found it's region monitoring accuracy to be horrid - either the alarms fire when I haven't moved, don't fire at all, or fire an hour later when I'm 20 miles outside the region.
Since I have the same issues with the built-in Reminders app, I suspect it's something specific to my geographical area, or the api is just rubbish.
In ios 4 it was accuracy was miles. As of ios 5, it's usually accurate to within a block. but it's not accurate in desolate areas (due to lack of wifi signals).
Significant location change is clumsy to say the least. If you ask Siri to "remind you to get milk when you leave the house" you can see she sends messages at all different ranges of your leaving. Our engine monitors BTLE for disconnected, or WiFi zones for connected on iOS. Plus we provide background operation in iOS. Let us know what you think of the SDK in your application.
I'm curious how this works on iOS in the background? I admittedly don't know that much about it, but my understanding was that apps basically couldn't run code that constantly monitored things like this in the background on iOS.
I solved this by using the "Insomniac" approach - if you play a silent sound every 30 seconds or so, the scheduler will reset the sleep timer and the app will keep working. It drains the battery in around 1 day though.
Love the idea of the silent sound. Alas, that and the IP backgrounding is a bit clumsy. We pass through Apple's store guidelines without powering up the GPS.
It's my understanding that they can do so if they identify as a navigation app. It's hit-or-miss as to whether that will pass scrutiny by the app store reviewer though.
I'm also curious how they got the wifi scanning working on iOS, last time I looked at doing it myself Apple had moved/removed the private library in iOS5.
So? Please add something to the discussion rather than just pasting a link to a competitor. What does Gimbal do that's different/better/etc.? Genuinely curious.
You can also do this using NFC. Not sure if this is possible with Tasker, but (for example) you could have a car dock with a passive NFC tag (very cheap) on it that would change the phone to automatically read your text messages out loud and prompt you to respond with voice input.
This is the concept for the engine, we are glad you "got it." Although you can add it into Tasker too. The bigger picture is that you do not need to be connected to the WiFi or BT radio to enable this.
Isn't this for you to answer? NewAer builds "showcase apps" but the SDK is for all to build on. Our favorite is a menu on a tablet that knows what you ordered last time you visited the restaurant and suggests something new the 2nd visit. All with your phone in your purse or pocket. No check ins, QR codes, tapping NFC or logging in. That's the vision of the SDK.
