Tasker - just brilliant
The title describes how I feel about this app for my Nexus One. Tasker allows you to set up your phone to perform certain actions depending upon a criteria, these criteria can be time, place, application ……….
I have implemented tasks that react to applications, so for instance if I launch Maps, then the Tasker profile I have setup turns on the GPS, and when I exit the application it turns off the GPS.
Having this and other profiles helps the battery life of the phone, i.e. I can keep the GPS off most of the time, and have 3G data turned off, when wi-fi is available, plus after 11pm the phone goes into silent mode, turning wi-fi and 3G off as they are not required whilst I sleep, and turns these services back on when I awake.
The problem with all these profiles/tasks is that they end up clashing. So if I have the phone in Power profile (Turns on wi-fi, the clock, etc …) and it gets to 11pm then the overnight profile clashes with the Power profile. Tasker provides the ability to have variables, this is great but this means it now becomes almost a scripting language. As now certain things have to occur if something else is occurring.
Does this mean Tasker doesn’t scale for normal users ? I think that is a yes, as not everyone will be able to understand how the exception conditions are handled. However, the ability this program gives me is great, and I’ll enjoy putting in those exceptions into my current profiles. I will document how I get on