Watch for a great snippet about Task Ave. at the 2:14 mark. Thanks, Jay Ingram!
Since January 4, 2010, Task Ave. users have created over 1,600 locations and 2,000 tasks. Amazing! Thank you.
We Care #1 - Saving Your Battery
There have been several comments and questions on the App Store, the Twitters, and via email concerning the use of GPS and its effects on the battery life of your device. Let’s answer those questions and clear up some misconceptions. We’ll start with what you need to know, then get into the technical details for the curious.
Misconception
This app is great in theory but it leaves your location services always running. Resulting in very poor battery life. — App Store review
Running the GPS costs a lot of electrons, this is true of all location-based apps that run in the background. Task Ave. does its best to preserve as many precious electrons as possible without you having to worry if it’s running in the background.
How?
Task Ave. gives you a choice! The iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4 have a location detection mode (more details below) that saves significant battery life at the cost of accuracy. It can be better or worse depending on the density of cell towers in your neighborhood, so YMMV. When “Save Battery Life” is set to ON, Task Ave. won’t be draining your battery while in the background and you will always receive proximity alerts.
Task Ave. uses your current location for proximity alerts when you get close to a location that has incomplete tasks.
If you turn proximity alerts off Task Ave. doesn’t need location updates in the background, so the GPS is turned off in the background. Similarly if you don’t have any incomplete tasks.
The “save battery” feature is appreciated as other apps that run strictly off GPS can really drain the battery fast. Also, the ability to turn the proximity sensitivity to “off” helps with battery management when the app is not being used. — App Store review
The Technical Details
The location services on iOS are provided by a framework called Core Location. It is used to retrieve your geographic coordinates and provides two methods of doing so. The first (and default method) is to use the Standard Location Service: Assisted GPS (AGPS) - a combination of GPS, known WiFi hotspots, and cell towers.
The problem with the AGPS method is that it uses the radios of the GPS and WiFi and these consume a lot of power. When Task Ave is running in the background in this mode it will drain your battery much faster. Core Location’s solution to the battery drain problem is simple for devices with cellular radios. The cellular service knows when there is a change in cell towers and the strength of the signal. So why not have apps register to be notified when a tower change occurs? Or a reasonable estimation of the region hit-test via triangulation based on signal strength? This mode — Significant-Change Location Service — is used when the “Save battery life” switch is ON.
Power savings comes at a cost to accuracy. The Significant-Change Location Service is accurate to 500m when the app is in the background (source: The Long Weekend Website). This is why the smallest proximity alert setting is 500m. You could actually be 500m from where it places you and the location service updates occur every kilometer. That means you could have passed the location by more than 1km before it notifies you.
In addition to saving your battery life, the Significant-Change Location Service will restart Task Ave. even when it is not running (closed by you or jettisoned by iOS) with the location update. That means you’ll always get your proximity alerts!
Hope that clears up any confusion. If you have any more questions or comments, feel free to contact us at hello@taskave.com or @taskave on Twitter.
Task Ave. 1.0.1
We just pushed Task Ave. 1.0.1 live in the App Store. Aside from a few general improvements, we’ve also fixed an annoying bug that was preventing some users from turning “Save battery life” mode on. Grab it now!
Entering a new task and want to use a location you’ve entered previously? Just tap on the “Book” icon in the location field to access a list.
Ten Days Later
Wow! The response to Task Ave. has been amazing.
- Erin Bury wrote a great post for Techvibes the day the app launched.
- GigaOm posted a glowing review by Darrell Etherington.
- The crew at the Social Media Show podcast interviewed Mark about the app.
- Apple featured Task Ave. in the New & Noteworthy category in the Productivity section.
- Jacquelyn Cyr wrote about entrepreneurial spirit in the workplace and prominently featured Task Ave.
- Joshua Errett said “Awe-inspiring Task Ave. should be every start-up’s model” in NOW.
- The fine folks at Apple once again saw fit to feature Task Ave. and made it one of their New & Noteworthy apps for the entire Canadian store.
- Jesse Hollington was kind enough to write up a quick post about the app for iLounge.
- Brodie Beta wrote a great review for The Next Web.
Of course we’ve also heard from you, the users! We’ve been listening and have already submitted an update to fix one of the bugs people were experiencing. Thank you, again, for your support! We’ve got plenty up our sleeves for updates to come.
As always, we’d love to hear from you at hello@taskave.com or @taskave on Twitter.
Introducing Task Ave.
It’s finally here. After three months of design, development, and testing, Task Ave. is now available!
In a nutshell, Task Ave. is a location-aware task management app. Need to pick up milk from the grocery store? Let Task Ave. remind you the next time you’re there. It’s easy-to-use, looks great, and doesn’t bother you with features you don’t need. We’re extremely proud of this first release and hope you love it as much as we do.
So, what can it do?
- Location-aware reminders with local notifications on iOS 4.0+
- Add, edit and delete tasks on a beautiful map or list view
- Drop or drag task pins on the map with an active task count
- Find locations with a search of nearby places or add your own
- Configure reminders’ proximity from 500m to 13km
- Switch location tracking between GPS and cell tower (battery friendly with iPhone 3GS & 4)
- Disable task reminders for specific locations or all of them
- Remove completed tasks at an adjustable interval
With much more to come!
We are eternally grateful for the amazing support and feedback from our family, friends, and beta testers. Without them, Task Ave. would not be half as polished as it is today. You guys rock.
If you haven’t already, pick up Task Ave. today!
The insanity of Startup Weekend Toronto. The nervousness of DemoCamp Toronto 27. The heads-down determination of three months of development.
The ball is in Apple’s court now.
Happy Holidays from Task Ave.
Before we begin sipping eggnog and opening presents, the entire Task Ave. team wanted to take this opportunity to wish you all the very best this holiday season. Thank you for your support and love over the last few months — we’ve been truly lucky to have it.
We were hoping to have Task Ave. ready before the holidays but, through beta testing, we quickly discovered that some of our assumptions about how the app would be used were wrong. We’ve spent the last two weeks giving it some polish and we look forward to bringing Task Ave. to you in January.
Here’s to an amazing 2010 and an even better 2011!
