Introducing a ‘new’ blog segment where I put my thoughts on some of the best, or worst, of the android apps that I have tried. Today on the docket, Setting Profiles.
We all are on the go, we move everywhere. That is why we have a mobile phone. But I find that I have a handful of places that I am at more often than others. At these various spots I have different services or settings that I use on my phone. At home and work I want to be connected to the WIFI. At low battery state on the phone I want to shut everything off to conserve battery. When at a funeral service, or Sunday while at church I want the phone completely silent. Conversely, when not at home, I don’t want WIFI on depleting my battery needlessly. Or when not at church I want to hear my phone. What is a real pain in the butt is to set these things at each new location every time.

In steps Setting Profiles. There are other apps that also change phone settings based upon certain phone criteria, but I found them cost prohibitive. Settings Profiles only cost $3.95 and is so similar in feature set for my needs it is a no-brainer to save the money.
With Setting Profiles there are some things that very first must be done after installing the app. First, set up some Locations.When you go to add a new location it gives you a couple options, I always chose Lat/Lon which then gives you a map. You simply select where, the distance in radius that you must be from this point, and then a name. Viola, you have set a location. The really cool thing, you don’t have to be at the location, you just have to select ANY point on the map.

Next is to set profiles. When setting a profile you will then select what things should be on/off. Just go down the list and turn things on and off as needed.
Last step, is to set up a rule saying that if you are in location A turn on setting B. Once your location criteria is met Setting Profiles will change your phone settings. Once you no longer meet the location criteria, Setting Profiles will change your settings back to how they were before.
But what if you want something to happen and it is not dependent upon location. Never fear! There are many criteria choicesthat you have. Battery State, Calendar appointment title, Missed call, Blue Tooth device connected, on even just a specific scheduled time to name a few. Do you want your phone to automatically silent from 8:00 PM to 8:00 AM so you don’t get disturbing calls in the night? No problem, this can do that.
What if you don’t want it to change phone settings? You do have the option of Running a program or Notifying you also.

Last points to highlight. You also can select multiple profiles at a time. It simply applies them in order. If your first rule turns on WIFI and the second one disables it, WIFI will be off. Another neat feature is the widget which allows you to quickly use aprofile, disable a profile, or use a profile on a timer. Very convenient for that meeting to be an hour. Time the profile setting with the widget for one hour and automagically your phone settings change when you are done. The widget also shows you the order that the profiles are applied in so that you can more easily refine your rule-set.
What I like: I like the convenience of just knowing that my phone settings will change when they are supposed to without me thinking about it. Very convenient to know that stuff is just magically working for me. Also, the UI is actually quite simple to use and very intuitive.
My wish list: It seems that the GPS location rules are stuck at 1/2 mile. I can’t get a 1/4 mile to work at all. I wish that all the granular options worked for this. Also, on the Calendar Items condition my only option is that for 12 hours prior to the calender item I can have some action happen. Really? 12 hours? With all our that this app can do we only get the ‘choice’ of 12 hours? I want to see options for 12 hours, 1 hour, 30 minutes, and 5 minutes at LEAST. With a more finite time interval I could set it so that when I had a funeral, or had a family arrangement or meeting of some kind it could auto silence my phone. 12 hours is just rediculous. I would also like to see a cell phone tower location option for CDMA phones. Maybe there is a technology limitation there, not sure. But it would still be nice.
All in all: I would still recommend this app to people. Not just as a cheaper alternative than Locale, but as a great option for criteria based phone settings changes. The price point is such that it really is a good value, and really, my gripes are minor. Also, the app is still under active development, which means that improvements should continue to happen (should being the operative word).