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.