Locale 1.0

  • Upgrading from beta
    • Since Locale 1.0 is a completely new application, it may be installed simultaneously with 0.695 beta or later. Actually running both services simultaneously is not recommended though
    • Situations, conditions, and settings cannot be transferred from the beta to 1.0
    • Fully compatible with existing 3rd party plug-ins
  • Overview
    • Significantly more reliable
    • Better battery life
    • Support for small screen/low resolution devices (e.g. HTC Tattoo)
    • Support for large screen/high resolution devices (e.g. Motorola Droid)
    • Improved readability on devices with non-standard UI skins, such as the Hero
    • Multiple conditions of the same type (OR operator) in a situation, accessed via a long-press on the “Add Condition” button
    • Multiple settings of the same type in a situation, accessed via a long-press on the “Add Setting” button
    • Locale now always shows a notification while the service is running for improved reliability. This notification cannot be disabled due to new limitations introduced in Android 2.0. Without the notification, Locale would not be able to run reliably in the background
    • Dutch localization
    • Hundreds of bugs fixed!
  • Battery Condition
    • Now supports 5% increments
    • Significantly improved detection of plug and unplug
  • Calendar Condition
    • Removed for the time being due to many bugs; will return in the future!
  • Contact Condition
    • Now lasts for the duration of a call, rather than just while the phone is ringing. One hypothetical use case: enabling Bluetooth for the duration of a call
    • Support for Google contact groups
  • Location Condition
    • Significantly improved location detection and reliability. No longer rapidly bounces between situations or Defaults when accuracy is low or when entering a building
    • No longer necessary to leave Wi-Fi enabled all the time. Instead, Locale may periodically enable Wi-Fi for about 1 second to determine location when necessary
  • Orientation Condition
    • New condition to detect physical face up or face down orientation of the phone
  • Time Condition
    • Now detects and handles time zone changes automatically
    • Supports 0-length time spans for triggering an event at a certain time
    • Supports correct first day of week for different countries
  • Display Setting
    • Replaced by the individual Brightness and Screen Timeout settings, allowing these to be adjusted independently
  • Brightness Setting
    • Support for auto-brightness on devices with an ambient light sensor
  • Screen Timeout Setting
    • On Android 2.0 devices, the timeout intervals are now consistent with the Android 2.0 settings
  • Wi-Fi Setting
    • Fixed concurrency issues that could cause the Wi-Fi setting to fail if Locale was simultaneously checking location (for this reason, do NOT use third party plug-ins that interact with Wi-Fi)
  • Developer Platform
    • Preliminary support for plug-in conditions
    • Storing extras directly in Intents is deprecated in favor of using a well defined “com.twofortyfouram.locale.intent.extra.BUNDLE” Bundle
    • Dynamic sharing of string and drawable resources
    • Backwards compatible with old plug-ins
  • Known Issues
    • The Wallpaper setting can sometimes be quirky, especially if another situation happens to change the wallpaper while you are picking a wallpaper.
    • The ability to search for location by name does not work under Android 1.5
    • Drag-and-drop reprioritization of situations behaves strangely under Android 1.5
    • The Motorola Cliq will reboot frequently while using the Location condition. Motorola is aware of the issue, although they have not committed to a fix at this time. (Let Motorola support know that this is important to you, so that they’ll pay attention and fix this issue!)
    • All Samsung devices are incompatible with the Location condition. Samsung is investigating the issue.