Opinion: One More Thing...

The opinions expressed here are those of Steve Birchfield. They do not necessarily reflect those of the Android Activist or its readers (but probably do). I just want to be sure we are clear that this is strictly my opinion.

I recently have gone a few rounds online with ZDNet's Ken Hess about his article "Why I'll never own an Android-based anything". I will say that he has taken some heat for it on the site, on Google+ and even from Ashley Glenn on Rootzwiki. He has stood his ground. I commend him for that.  I don't doubt that Ken feels the way he said in the article at all. My only real issue with the article is that we all see writers push out these sensationalized headlines knowing it will stir anger and love for either side of the cause to get page views. He did say that it was his opinion and in fact the title suggests that. I know personally I see these headlines at ZDNet and other tech sites like this that are meant to be a commentary but lead you to believe they are factual. If this had been on Mr. Hess' personal blog I would not have even cared. But when a mainstream tech site posts it and emails me about it too, I think it might be a real news story rather than just opinion. When faced with these articles which are really opinions, it wasn't clear enough that this was only his opinion or feelings and not based on any definitive facts.

Ken Hess is a Windows and Linux system admin, so being an admin myself I have followed him on ZDNet and Google+. I have not always agreed with his articles but I have respected him.  But reading the article it made me question how much of a techie he really is. I consider myself a power user. Every system that I use, I try and maximize the potential of it. My phone is no different. In fact, I am probably harder on my phone than any computer I have ever owned.  I use it as a mobile laptop. I remote into servers to do work on them, I use it for my email accounts and I keep in touch with family and friends on it.  Through my phone and tablet I write articles and ideas down whenever they hit me. It wakes me up in the morning and is the last thing I look at before I go to bed at night. I was this way with my Blackberry phones before it. This is who I am at my core. I am a techie, nerd and geek all rolled into one.

I am also an artist of sorts. I take a raw piece of hardware and mold it into a powerhouse of utility. I take a basic phone and operating system, customize it and hack it into something more than it was intended to be. I want to push it to the limits and when I get there go even further.  I like how muggles normal people are amazed when I connect to a computer system and do things from my phone or make changes to something right before their eyes with only my phone in hand.  I love utilities that easily allow me to change systems and settings without having to login to a full desktop. Geeky stuff I know, but that is what I like to do.

When I look at IOS I see a system that has tons of apps and support but limitations in how I can maximize the potential of the operating system. Sure I can jailbreak an iPhone and do more with it, but unlike Android, you really become an outcast in the ecosystem when you take that path. With Android I can root and ROM and even the carriers know that this is likely to happen. I have sent phones in for repair that have been rooted, I have called support and even though it was obvious that it was not stock, I got support.  Try taking that jailbroken iPhone to an Apple store for loving support. Be sure to record the employee's reactions for me when you do!

But the article made me think that maybe Ken Hess is not the admin I thought he was. Maybe he isn't the artist I am. He wants a system that comes out of the box and does magical things without any effort. That's his prerogative and I am cool with that. I however, am not satisfied with the stock keyboard on the iPhone (and yes I support users with iPhones and set them up for Exchange and fix problems from time to time, so I do use them occasionally). I do not like that the desktop is every app you own. In Android I have my desktop streamlined for efficiency and hide the apps that I don't use often.  Heck, I don't like the stock keyboard in Android but I can change it out. I add in my own browser. I root the phone and remove apk's so that I don't have apps that are pre-installed even show up!

I know if my mother bought an Android phone (perish the thought!) she would live with whatever came on it unless my sister or I changed it for her. I would recommend she get an iPhone for that exact reason. So am I saying that perhaps (in my opinion) Ken Hess has the tech savvy ambitions of my mother?  Well, given the facts presented and his follow up comments, yes I am.  He doesn't want to have to change anything on it. That is ok. Android isn't for everyone. I know that and I do not want everyone to have it if it doesn't suit them.  But don't blast a headline on ZDNet saying how you think there is no worthy Android product. That is not true for everyone even though you may believe it. I could title this "Apple sucks and don't ever buy one" but it isn't true and even though it doesn't work for me personally I know there are some that love it and I try to understand why.  Ken, Android may not work for you, but for about 350 million others it is working. And though many people that have Ken in their circle of influence (i.e. - Amazon reviewers) that have Android phones may say Android is all of the bad things listed in your article, they still don't own an iPhone now do they?

Oh, there is one more thing, I know my opinion may anger many iPhone users but that's ok. I haven't said anything bad about iPhone or IOS, nor do I believe it is a bad platform and I hope I made it clear that it is only my opinion. I know IOS has a target audience that it should be in the hands of. I also know that Android also has a target audience. If that audience is a geek-centric group then that is who should buy them. I like to drive cars but I know that a stage 3 race car is not going to fit my needs very well on a daily basis, so I bought a four door car with a turbo powered engine because I have kids to load in the car but like to go 0-60 fast when I am driving alone. No differences here either. I need a race car for my every day driver and Ken needs a Buick. But do not tell everyone that because you drive like a 90 year old that cannot see over the steering wheel, that they should all buy Buicks. That is just doing a disservice to your readers.

Thanks for listening to me rant!

Edit: He did follow up and I think we all know this article is true. At least it is based in facts.

App Review: Majesty - Fantasy Kingdom Sim

I am not much of a gamer anymore.  There was a time when I would start playing a game and not stop until I had mastered it.  But these days I like spending my spare time doing other things, like writing about Android for instance.  I just don't find many games to be that entertaining on a phone or tablet.  That has all changed since loading the award winning Majesty: Fantasy Kingdom Sim by HeroCraft.  I have found a game I want to play and I have lost a few hours at a time doing so.

Majesty was originally a PC strategy game that has been brought over to Android. I like that some of the older PC games are finding a new life on mobile devices.  The late 90's and early 2000's offered some innovative titles on the PC platform.  Majesty was one of these great titles released at that time.  Now, on Android I think the game looks better than the original. It is colorful and the graphics are sharp.

The game play is different than most real time strategy games because you do not directly control the characters you create, called heroes. Instead, you offer rewards for them to destroy an item or to discover uncharted lands.  The enjoyment you get by building your kingdom is where the game shines. You do not need to worry that your heroes should be attacking a troll or you need to lead them to the battles. Instead, you build your buildings and add heroes to succeed.  In the game you build your blacksmith's shop and purchase upgraded weapons or armor. In your marketplace you buy potions so that your wizards can use new magic spells. You are building the kingdom to help your heroes be successful.

You not only build heroes, but as your kingdom grows you recruit heroes. This helps you become a stronger force to destroy enemies.  There are 10 different types of heroes you can build yourself with unique weapons and armor.  There are dozens of spells that help your heroes in battle.  With 30 buildings which are upgradable to several different levels, you can upgrade to get more capabilities with your heroes. This game quickly grows on you!

I ran this on my Galaxy Tab 7" tablet and the gameplay was quick and fluid. Even with a weaker GPU unit in the Tab, the game does not lag like other games with so many things going on at the same time. The game also played great on my Galaxy Nexus but in my opinion, the screen is a bit small for all of the items on that sized screen.  The sounds are just the right mix and the music sounds like you are at a renaissance festival. I normally turn all game sounds off but I found myself playing with headphones on and leaving the volume up.

As you start the game you are given the option to create a profile, enable/disable sounds and choose the point in the game where you want to begin.  You select or cancel by clicking on a check mark or an X.  The controls are consistent throughout the game but the placement of a few were off to the side or generally harder to find.  I also wish there was a way to turn off more of the prompts. After you run through the tutorial I did not want to see all of the prompts that I was given throughout the game.  This is a minor annoyance, but one that could be corrected.

Speaking of game play, it is relatively quick to play each round. You can stop and resume a round making playing on short breaks much easier.  I would start a round and sometimes walk away for a few moments letting my heroes fight while my tax collectors gathered more money.  I like being able to play and not have to babysit the heroes the whole game.  You start off most rounds with an ample amount of funds to build what you need.  There is nothing more frustrating than playing these real time strategy games when you are broke the whole time.  I have played some levels on all three difficulty levels because they were that much fun to play.  The addition of Skirmish mode needs to be mentioned.  People asked for this feature and HeroCraft delivered.  A skirmish mode was added to allow you to fight battles against AI opponents. This is a fun way to play different variations of the game. I found myself playing skirmish mode on Majesty: Northern Expansion for hours.

The game has already won several awards and with over 4600 reviews in the Android Market and sporting a very respectable 4.5 star rating, people love this game.  It is available on several platforms including Android, IOS, Bada and Symbian.  For Android, Majesty comes in the full version for $1.99 or a lite version for free. As I mentioned, they also have a new version that is called the Northern Expansion which offers new monsters, missions, weather conditions and lands. The Northern Expansion has a free and paid version also. I played the lite version and found the game to play just like the original but with new items.  Either way, you will find this real time strategy game worth your time.

Run Android ICS on a Windows 7 PC

Recently I talked about running ROMs and images as virtual machines (VM) on our phones.  All of that is still in the early stages of development but running Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) on your Windows 7  PC is a reality today.  Thanks to the free virtualization software VirtualBox by Oracle and Dinesh from the Sysprobs site you could load and run an ICS ROM on your PC. 

Dinesh runs the Sysprobs site and posts different virtual machine configurations and write ups all of the time.  He did a great Hackintosh write up for how to run a Mac Lion image in VirtualBox that I run on my PC to test Mac apps and settings.  He recently posted a way to run Ice Cream Sandwich in a VM.  Running ICS on a PC is a great way to get familiar with the look and feel of Ice Cream Sandwich without having to buy a tablet or new phone.  His site walks you through how to download and configure your computer to get the ROM running.  If you have a Windows PC with free disk space and some time to set this up you can be testing ICS today.

He does mention that this is a 4.0.1 image that they are running. He goes on to say that the Android x86 project home has some ISO files to start from scratch with and some of the more ambitious readers out there may want to try and update the OS to 4.0.3 or 4.0.4. I have tried creating bootable images from the Android x86 site before without much success.  Sysprobs' walkthroughs and recommended images have always worked for me in the past.  If you just want to see what all of the ICS hype is about, this is the fastest way to try it.  Running 4.0.1 will work fine for testing purposes.

I have run Gingerbread ROMs through VirtualBox and I was able to ADB on my PC through the virtual USB port to the ROM and push apps and updates to the VM.  These are powerful tools, and once you get the image booting you can run this VM like it is a real device.  This is geeky stuff!  But for the enthusiast like many of us are, running a VM opens up a world of possibilities.  You can snapshot the VM before doing anything potentially damaging and roll back to that snapshot if everything goes wrong.  All of this will let you test without having to brick your phone or root any devices.

A couple of final notes on this. I found another blog with some more information about running the ROM.  Between the two sites I think you should be able to successfully launch ICS on your desktop or laptop computer. The download of the VDI image is on a Japanese website.  Google translated it but the big Download button is all you really need.

Head over to Sysprobs to get started with virtualization.  These tools are free and the possibilities are unlimited.

My Google Drive Wish List

This week the Wall Street Journal reported that Google is close to releasing what was previously referred to as G-Drive. For those of you that have never heard of this, it is Google's version of Dropbox, an online repository for your files that synchronizes files to the cloud.  I decided to come up with a wish list of what I hope the service will be.

I think for Google Drive (the suspected new name of the service) to be a success, one of the key features is going to be the amount of free storage they are going to offer. Dropbox gives new users 2GB for free. SugarSync, another competing service and iCloud both offer 5GB for new users and I believe Google will need to up that amount to at least 10GB or more. 10GB of online storage should be enough for most people's needs.  I have a ton of music that I now have stored in the cloud on Google Music for free.  That leaves me with the data files.  I have my 5.5GB of photos and files in Google Docs and Picasa.  If I can keep all of my old files dating back to the late 90's plus pictures in fewer than 6GB then 10GB will be a good starting point.

Pricing for additional storage will be the next key component. 10GB should more than enough for the casual user of the service but heavy users will look to upgrade their allowed storage.  Google's current pricing for Google Docs and Picasa is ridiculously cheap in comparison to other services. For $5 a year I was given 20GB of storage to use between the services.  For $20 a year I could have 80GB of storage or jump up to 200GB for $50 a year. They have higher plans but I think most power users will find the pricing and amount of storage offered to be very reasonable. With Dropbox the next level up is 50GB for $9.95 a month.  SugarSync jumps to $49.99 a year or $4.99 a month for 30GB.  Both are a steep increase over free in comparison to Google's current pricing.

To compete head to head with Dropbox, Google will need to create a similar drive mapping feature on the desktop that you get with the Dropbox client.  I want to have a G: drive mapped on my PC that is the uplink to the cloud storage.  It will need to stay in sync with little to no effort on my part.  Google has done a good job of this in the past, but I am just concerned that if they miss this step that it will greatly hinder the service's usefulness.

On the Android devices, the integration to Android is going to be the key.  Like how Google+ uploads pictures automatically (if  you allow it), I want to be able to have my documents, music and pictures all to be uploaded to the Google Drive without having to manually start it. Having the ability to specify uploads over wifi only or being able to throttle uploads across cell networks of course is a must. But imagine all of your data files on your phone or tablet being uploaded to the cloud so that when you get to your desktop the files would be there. Sharing your data between a computer, phone, tablet or any web enabled device without any effort is what will keep people using it.  That is what cloud storage is really designed for.  The client needs to be an integral part of the OS once it is installed.

Support for other platforms will be necessary to compete with iCloud and SkyDrive. Until Android tablets take off iPad support will be critical, at least in the mainstream media's view.   But why not compete with Apple on their own devices? Also, as Windows 8 comes out this year it would be great to have a cloud solution ready to install on the new computers and tablets from day one.  Google needs to be everywhere they can be.  With a client on an Apple or Microsoft computer syncing up to the cloud and allowing you to get to those files on your mobile devices, this would let users migrate to the cloud without feeling like they are making a major change from what they are doing today.

What type of things would you like to see in the Google Drive service? Sound off below in the comments section.

How to Recover From A Lost Phone

Have you ever lost your phone? Do you know what to do in such a situation? I have never lost a phone but I have come close a few times. The anxiety attack that ensued was enough to make me decide to do something to minimize a possible loss. But what should you do to protect yourself? Here are a few tips to help make a potentially bad situation into something more manageable.

The first thing we need to discuss is the type of loss. If we are talking, losing your phone in the house versus losing it in a cab, there are different steps that you need to take. Obviously, losing your phone in a cab or leaving it in a restaurant is a more serious spot to be in and one that will require immediate attention. However, losing your phone in the laundry and destroying it could be almost as devastating in terms of the data loss. These are all first world problems I know, but we are an Android site and some of us keep all of our data on there. In either case, there are some steps you should take to help recover from the loss or recover your phone.

One of the most important steps if you lose your phone is not to panic. It is easier said than done, but  a calm rational person is more likely to take the correct steps in order to find their phone or at least stop any personal data from being stolen. You should retrace your steps either physically or mentally. Walk through in your mind the last time you had your phone. Do you remember what came next? If you can, go back to that spot and look around or call your phone. I left my brand new Galaxy Nexus on a chair in a busy Starbucks one night. I had put it down for a second and it slid back in the chair. I got up and left the store.  When I got to the stop light a block from the store I realized that my precious phone was not with me. I thought for a few seconds about where I last had it (seemed like an eternity) and remembered sitting it on the chair.  A quick U-turn or two later and I was back at the store.  There in the chair sat my phone. I am not going to say I was calm but I didn't completely freak out either.

What if you really don't remember where you left your phone? Try calling it. If you lose it in the house listen for the ringing. Many people do not keep the ringer on and turn the phone to vibrate. Listen for the buzzing. I have found my phone when it fell out of my pocket in the car by calling it and hearing the low buzz.  If the phone was found maybe it will be answered. You can hope that your phone was found by someone honest that will be helpful. Do not threaten the person holding your phone. They have the upper hand in the matter and if you want any hope at all of them returning it to you they shouldn't feel like they did anything wrong. You lost the phone!  Talk calmly and thank them for finding it then try to get their name and location. This will help you to recover it. If they become uncooperative you may need to call the police and your cell phone carrier right away.

Now let's assume that you have lost your phone or had it stolen.  All hope is still not lost but there are some important steps you need to take.  You will want to change your passwords immediately. Yes, all of your passwords that are tied to apps on your phone should be changed. This is a pain but having someone posting as you on your Facebook page is bad enough but hacking your banking account and using your Amazon apps to buy expensive items could be far worse. Identity theft is no joke and your data on the phone could be used by someone else, costing you money. Warn your family and friends that your phone has been stolen. This will help if the person with the phone contacts them in finding out who may have it and some criminals are now even using phones to call contacts to try and rob them by faking emergencies.  Changing your number sounds like a big hassle too but in the long run it will protect you, your family and friends.

After changing your passwords call your carrier and have them put a hold on the phone. Don't wait too long to do this or you could be held partially responsible for those 400 calls to Mumbai.  Here are the customer service numbers you can call from another line.

• Verizon Wireless: (800) 922-0204
• AT&T: (800) 331-0500
• Sprint Nextel (888) 211-4727
• T-Mobile: (877) 453-1304

There are some precautions you should take right now to make this all easier. Write down your IMEI and ENS or serial number in a safe place right now.  If you need to call the carrier this is useful information that they will likely ask for.  Having it available will make the process easier. If you have a SIM card in your phone for AT&T or T-Mobile have that number on hand too. Another thing you can do is install some tracking software. There are several apps that do this. I personally use Where's My Droid and SeekDroid.  Both are tracking apps but in my experience I have found Where's My Droid to be more useful for the situation where you have lost your phone in the house or car and are trying to make it ring so that you can locate it whereas, SeekDroid is more of a remote control/prevent the bad guys from stealing your data app.  SeekDroid has a website you can go to from any computer and it will tell you all of the stats it can about your phone, including battery level and location. It can track your phone with GPS and remotely wipe your SD cards and app data.  It will give you peace of mind knowing your information is safe. I personally use both apps. If I drop the phone in the couch I text my phone with Where's My Droid if I lost my phone I would track it with GPS in SeekDroid.

The last prevention step you should do before you lose your phone is to be sure to have an off-device backup. A Nandroid Backup (rooted devices) is a great way to backup your phone's data. However, if you lose your phone, that data backup will be on the SD card along with your phone and both are lost.  It will not help you at all if the phone is destroyed or never recovered.  Titanium Backup (also requires root) allow you to backup to a Dropbox account. I do a backup to Dropbox every once and a while just in case something happens to my phone. I know at the very least that I will be able to pull that backup down if I have to replace my phone.  If you are cheap thrifty and do not want to pay for that type of software then hook up your data cable and backup your phone to a computer. This will give you a backup that is not on your device. Now I can't help you if you backup to your laptop and you lose both your laptop and your phone!  Try and put the backup somewhere safe.

You should be checking your contacts to be sure they are synchronizing to your Google account in the cloud (www.google.com/contacts/)  to ensure that you do not lose any of that data.  Your emails will be stored in the cloud and should simply download again to another phone if you have to replace your device.  If you have a backup of the SD card or keep your documents on Google Docs all of your data should be recoverable.    But what if you (heaven forbid) do not own an Android device? There is hope for you too, or at least your data.  Blackberry phones sync back to a BIS or BES server and will pull your data down to a new device.  All of your data is synchronized wirelessly to the Blackberry server.  I have recovered users data to a new phone when the old one took an unexpected swim.  Windows phones sync data to servers, normally an Exchange server or your Windows Live account with your files going to Skydrive. iPhone users can sync contacts to iCloud or you can sync to iTunes.  From what I read it isn't automatically going to iCloud throughout the day but only once a day.  Your contacts and data will only sync to iTunes when you connect the phone to your computer.  Better yet dump that puny screened brainwash machine and get a real phone (hey, we are an Android site after all!).

These are my suggestions for reducing the impact of a lost phone.  Have you lost a phone?  Any feedback would be appreciated.  Let us know what you did to recover or lessons that you learned.

Photo by Ciccio Pizzettaro c/o Flickr Creative Commons

Android as a Virtual Machine

As I read the news of phones that will our will not be getting Ice Cream Sandwich, it gets me thinking about the possibility of running Android as a virtual machine (VM) on top of the hardware. The advantage of this would be that it would take the hardware drivers out of the equation when looking at upgrading a phone. By isolating the OS from the true drivers of the phone or tablet one standard ROM could work on all phones running this technology. Even older phones could be upgraded to run Android this way. I see this as the fastest way to eliminate fragmentation.

I work with virtual machines all day long. The best part of them is that they can be moved from server to server even if the physical hardware is different. Virtualization separates the OS from the physical hardware and uses a set of drivers that are common among all of the hosts. Your virtual machine sees the same drivers no matter what is underneath the VM. You could run the same OS build on a LG phone or a HTC tablet and the drivers that are needed to make the image run are being presented to the guest Android OS as a generic set of devices. On servers for instance, Windows drivers that are run in a VM are industry standard drivers for the video, network cards and disk controllers. Windows has all of the drivers that a VM needs with just a standard install. No need to go track down that latest video or network card drivers. Underneath the VM at the host level, the virtualization kernel translates the virtual driver commands in a manner that the physical hardware the computer is using can understand.  It is the equivalent of being able to somehow use Chevy parts on your Ford car.  Miraculously, it all works very well and the technology keeps getting better.

Now imagine if your phone booted and ran only the virtual host launcher as part of the kernel. Then you could (in theory) run one of many ROM images. Hardware manufacturers could create one image that would run on all of their phones. The hacking community could create a launcher in which you could pick a ROM to boot and allow you to run multiple ROMs from a menu.  These ROMs would look much like they do now. They could be a single file that has all of the OS and data inside of it. If you moved that data file to another phone all of your settings and information would come along with it. The ROM could boot on a new phone just as simply as adding it to your SD card and pointing the boot loader to it. As you go from phone to phone or carrier to carrier the images you have could be transferred to allow you to always be able to get to that image. You can try out various ROMs without losing all of your data each time you switch. Even snapshot backups could be taken to revert back to a specific point in time.

By moving to that model the Android platform would be transformed. Fragmentation would be a thing of the past. When a manufacturer would update one ROM all of their phones could run it. We wouldn't have to wait for each model to be upgraded. One set of hardware drivers would be used for every phone on the market. There could still be limitations on letting old phones not run ROMs after a certain point, but upgrades would be so much easier. The carriers wouldn't have to support all of the different hardware models the way they do now. The phone or tablet would need to be able to boot the loader and the rest should work. If it is not working the support team would have you download another ROM image to see if it is the hardware or the image is bad.

VMware has developed this technology for allowing users run a business VM on their personal phone. I think this is just a few steps away from running any rom on a phone or booting straight into a rom. When the hypervisor is included in the kernel, the performance will be better and integration with the hardware becomes seamless. Monday through Friday you could run a stable ROM provided by your company while at night and weekends you boot into a personal ROM. If you want to try out an experimental ROM load it up and if it crashes too much just reboot back to a working image.

I am not a developer and I don't know what other limitations there are to make this a reality. What I do know is that on many of the computer based virtual machine hosts run Linux based operating systems at their core. Android has that core which I am certain is capable. Once this is created the whole face of the Android community would change rapidly. The days of bricking phones would all but vanish. You don't have to brick your phone because you are not changing the low level software components anymore.  Even novice users would be able to boot these images and understand to switch they just reboot. You could create an image and modify it to your liking. You then copy the image to your tablet device then you have the same image on both devices.  It might even be possible to load a ROM onto a SD card and move the card from device to device and keep all of your settings and changes with you no matter which device you are using.

Let's hope that someone further develops this type of virtualization technology soon. It will make the current fragmentation that we face go away. Manufacturers could still add their apps and skinning on phones but allow us to choose what works best for each one of us.

App Review: Timeriffic

My background as a mobile phone user goes back to 1994. Since rocking the bag phone back in those days I have had dozens of phones pass through my hands. Before I became an Android zealot I was a Blackberry geek. For all of the things Blackberry and RIM does wrong these days, they used to do so much right. One such thing I have missed since leaving my last Blackberry is sound profiles. With a Blackberry you would create a sound profile and it could encompass the settings for all of your apps. I would walk into a meeting and change my sounds to a customized meeting profile. I would leave the meeting and head to lunch turning my phone back to a loud profile. There was also a hotkey to easily switch from profile to profile. Even though it was manual, the process was quick and simple. I was searching for a way to do this in Android.

I have been using an app since I owned the MyTouch 3G called Timeriffic. Timeriffic allows me to set sound, display, wifi, Bluetooth and data connections to turn on or off at specific times and days. In fact, I have my whole week planned out where I hardly ever need to set any of those settings on my phone. I have my phone shut all sounds down to low volumes and the ringer go up higher at night. It also sets my display to auto brightness and turns on wifi to be sure while I am sleeping all of the apps that I only let download across wifi are able to do so. It turns off vibrations at night letting me keep it on the nightstand and not vibrate itself to the floor. In the morning it will bring the volumes up and screen brightness to a better level. A few minutes after I should be leaving the house it turns wifi off and media volumes back up while I am in the car driving. When I get to work at 7:30 the wifi is already turned on and the screen brightness has been readjusted. None of this requires that I touch the phone.

I am a creature of habit. My schedule does not vary much week to week so setting these things up ahead of time is very simple. But what if you have a crazy schedule that changes constantly? The obvious answer is that Timeriffic may not be for you. However, I think that it can be used if you are willing to manually control profiles. Profiles are a grouping of actions. Actions are the actual times and settings to turn on and off sounds or data connections. Think of profiles like being a filing cabinet and the actions are the files stored within those cabinets. Profiles have a check box beside them so that you may disable or enable those actions in one click. I typically have the basic times I will need certain things turned on or off set then modify those profiles manually if it varies. This is a great way to not forget to turn off your ringer when you need to be quiet. If I change my plans I can go in and with just a few clicks get all of my sound levels and data connections setup the way I prefer.

Within an action you can turn the ringer or vibration on, mute it or leave it unchanged from the last action. For the ring volume, notifications, media, alarms, system  and voice call volumes you have the option to leave them unchanged or set the value with a slider. The ability to set your screen and data connections will also help you to save your battery by turning off features when you don't need them. All of these actions are very easy to change.

RDRR Labs does have a sense of humor

Dave from RDRR Labs responded to my call for help when writing this article and he pointed out some interesting facts about the app and their company. First, their support team personally answers every support request. Not many apps have that level of support. To assist you in this process there is a way within the app to report errors and request new features. Second, they have a 4.5+ star rating in the market with between 100,000 and 500,000 installs. They are striving to become a perfect 5 star rating by great customer service and improving the app. He did mention that they hope to soon release a new version with highly requested features. Finally, they try to be a fun app. The default names of the profiles include Weekdaze and Party Time. They take the app very seriously but do seem to have a sense of humor as you can see from the Intro screen.

There are other apps that can change sounds and settings on the market. But for those that need control over these features in a free app with specific controls and great support, Timeriffic is a solid choice. For me personally it made the switch to Android a much smoother transition.