crowdin.net

I’m very happy to see that you are interested in translating AlarmDroid or RemindDroid!
Helping to translate the projects is pretty easy, and you won’t have to do the work alone. This page will tell you how you can participate. Hope to meet you at crowdin.net

How to translate
I’m hosting a translation project on crowdin.net. crowdin provides a great service and allows many people to collaborate in a project. The registration is for free, so feel free to create an account and to join my project.
AlarmDroid: http://crowdin.net/project/alarmdroid-for-android/invite
RemindDroid: http://crowdin.net/project/reminddroid/invite

If the translation in your language was already finished, I’m sure there are things to improve. And I’m also sure that there will be newer versions of AlarmDroid containing new words/phrases.

Speaking Clock (related to AlarmDroid only)
There is one special treatment in AlarmDroid I want to comment here: the Speaking Clock. The time strings of this feature are built dynamically. So if it’s not yet part of the application, you need to explain me how to tell the time in your language in order to allow me to implement it in the code directly.
Languages which are already implemented are:
Bulgarian, Danish, German, Greek, English, Spanish, Italian, Finnish, Polish, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian and Chinese (traditional/simplified).
For the following languages, text-to-speech synthesizers are available:
Canadian French, Dutch, French 
SVOX Pico, freely available in the Market
Arabic, Cantonese Chinese, Czech, Finnish, Hungarian (Q210), Japanese, Korean, North American Spanish, Norwegian, Portuguese, Swedish, Turkish.
SVOX Classic, around $3 in the Market.

Simple and clever.
To create a reminder, only two things need to be supplied: a subject and a date. That’s it. It could not be quicker.

And powerful.
This minimalist concept actually makes the handling very quick and easy, but at the same time, it limits the customizability a lot. It would be nice to have wide-ranging customization options, allowing you to customize the notifications how you like them. This is where RemindDroid is very special, because it allows you to build configuration sets, so called presets, which can be assigned to reminders. The application comes with a user-friendly and extensive preset editor, which allows you to design your custom notification styles from components like sounds, vibration patterns, speech synthesis and rests.
This saves time and gives you nearly unlimited customizability.

And even more powerful.
The overall concept is the common approach in science: find the most simple solution that solves as many problems as possible. This includes a very individual declaration of dates. Beside many input options (date, time, countdown, etc.) this application provides repeating events with a large number of optional options, including also the special case of a pill reminder. Apart from that, it is possible to add to each reminder as many dates as you want.

Required Permissions
SYSTEM TOOLS: AUTOMATICALLY START AT BOOT
After booting the device, all reminder events have to be re-scheduled to the alarm manager.
SYSTEM TOOLS: PREVENT DEVICE FROM SLEEPING
The application must be allowed to wake up the device when a reminder events occurs.
NETWORK COMMUNICATION
The internet access is exclusively used to provide advertisement banners.
At no time, personal (or any other) data are transferred!

there is a hacked version of AlarmDroid published in the Android Market (as “Advanced Alarm” with package name com.splunchy.android.super.alarmclock). This application is illegally distributed and contains malware. So be careful!

I already informed Google about that, but it might take some days.

Keep clean!
- F.

http://www.netzpurist.de/download/alarmdroid-1.7.2-beta1.apk

Thanks
Fabian.

In that way, you don’t need to disable the lock screen any more and don’t need to worry about that your phone could be unlocked while it’s in your pocket at once!

Please notice: If you are using your lockscreen e.g. in order to disable alarms, you should be careful when using this application because the lockscreen might be disabled even in that case.

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It is well programmed and does not drain the battery in any way. However, it may stress the battery on some (few) devices due to technical (firmware-related) reasons.
In principle, the application should work on almost every phone and with almost every lock screen application. Let me know if it does not.
A few last words: The App2SD-mode is intentionally deactivated, because it would not work that way (referring to the Android SDK Documents).

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This application is free. Since I spend much time on developing such applications, I appreciate every financial support for my projects, particularly because I spend much time on replying your emails. More details can be found on my website (see the link below).

*ring,ring* Max Mustermann is calling! *ring,ring* Max is waiting! Hurry up! *ring,ring* [...]

this is the application you are looking for. Because it is more convinient than a usual ring tone. Or simply because it sounds quite “cool”.

When developing this app, I put special emphasize on customizability. You can customize the default “ring tone” as well as the ring tone for every single contact in many different ways. You can copy and paste preferences, enable/disable this application for certain contacts, and much much more..! You can even record your own voice messages.

Additionally, there is a built-in Locale/Tasker plug-in.

This application is also available on androidpit.de and can be purchased via the Androidpit App Center by Paypal.

If you have any questions, suggestions or found any problems, please send an email to fabian@netzpurist.de

Download a 7 days trial version now!

http://www.netzpurist.de/download/speakingringtone-trial.apk

After 7 days, it’s up to you to decide whether you like this application or not. If you want to continue using it, you are redirected to the Android Market. It’s not necessary to remove the trial version.

Languages

The application (i.e. the voice output) supports all languages which are supported by the Android Text-To-Speech (TTS) module, that are most languages. The graphical user interface is localised to English and German.

Features

Here comes a (still incomplete) list of available features/preferences.

Allgemeine Einstellungen

1. Enable/disable this application
2. Use this application only if the caller is known
3. Privacy: Use this application only if the incoming number belongs to a known contact
4. Privacy: Enable this application only if a head set is plugged in
5. When turning over the phone: Do nothing/lower the volume/switch to silence
6. When shaking the phone: Do nothing/lower the volume/switch to silence
7. Advanced Settings (Customize synonyms for caller types, e.g. home, mobile, work, …)

Ringing

1. Ring tone (Apply the system ring tone or choose a custom one) *
2. Vibrieren (Apply the system ring tone or enalbe/disable vibration) *
3. Voice output text for known callers *
   E.G. “%name is calling %type”, during an incoming call, the following text will be announced: Max Mustermann is calling from work.
   Available Codes: Name, first name, last name, incoming number, type (“form home”, “from work”, “using a mobile phone”, …)
   Here, you can emphasize certain words less, moderately or even strongly.
   Alternatively, you can record a sound file using your microphone.
4. Voice output text for unknown callers
   E.G. “An unknown subscriber with number %no is calling!
   Also here you can emphasize single words. Or record your own audio file.
5. Choose between different modes: *
   1. Continuously ringing, voice output simultaneously
   2. Options: Start the first announcement delayed; rest between two announcements; lower the volume during the voice output takes place (e.g. to 70%).
   3. Ringing – announcement – ringing – announcement …
      Options: How many times should the phone ring before the first announcement starts?; How many times should the phone ring between two announcements?; rest after each announcement
   4. Only voice output (announcements) without ringing
      Options: Start the first announcement delayed; rest between two announcements
6. Speech speed *
7. Speech pitch *
8. Ramping volume *

Contact list / Contact related preferences

This tab shows a list of all contacts, which can be sorted either alphabetically or by “last contacted”. You can simply disable contacts, in order to disable this app whenever a disabled contact is calling. In this context, you can choose whether a contact should be enabled or disabled by default. And especially, you can customize all settings marked with a * (above) for each contact seperately.

Of course, you can copy and paste contact preferences. Or reset them to the default preferences (which you specify for all users). And you can backup all your settings.

Locale/Tasker

There is a built-in Locale plug-in, which is also supported by Tasker. In this way, it is possible e.g. to disable this app automatically while you stay at work, or to enable it while your phone is connected to a car dock (or what ever).

• You have to enter a stream directly, not a playlist file (like .m3u, .pls, …). Some users entered the address of a playlist file and got disappointed. If your radio station provides a playlist file, download it and open it in a text editor.
  For example Radio BBC provides a file of type m3u:
  http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/meta/tx/nb/live/eneuk.pls
  Download it, open it in a text editor (like Notepad on Windows) and you will find the following stream url:
  http://mp32.bbc.streamuk.com:80/
  This is the direct stream url you have to enter in AlarmDroid. Then it will most likely work (provided you have a valid internet connection)
• A complete list of supported audio formats can be found here:

  http://developer.android.com/guide/appendix/media-formats.html

How can I adjust the alarm volume?

• In AlarmDorid, you can set the alarm volume for each alarm seperately. Open the alarm preferences and set the preferred volume using the (hardware) volume buttons. This volume will be saved to the preferences of this alarm and will be loaded once the alarm goes off. Therefore, the AlarmDroid’s alarm volume is independent of your system ringtone volume.

AlarmDroid does not support App 2 SD. Why not?!

• That’s unfortunately true, but AlarmDroid is not to blame for this “fault”, because Android’s App-2-SD functionality is just not designed for applications which schedule alarms etc. Quite the contrary, it would be a fault to allow you to install AlarmDroid on your SD-Card, because the Android documentation highly recommends to NOT install such applications on the external storage. More informations can be found here:
  http://developer.android.com/guide/appendix/install-location.html#ShouldNot

(to be continued)

Download this app from the official android market [LINK]

or continuously updated on Androidpit.com [LINK]
(Needs Android 1.6 or higher¹)

[The list of features is not up-to-date any more, there are already a lot of new features. Unfortunately, I have currently no time to update this page.]

Special features

• flip’n'snooze
  It’s too early to wake up? Just flip your phone by 180° and enjoy snoozing for a while!
• shake’n'stop
  You want your alarm clock to stop ringing? Just shake yorr phone and it will!
• Soft Alarm Mode
  In this mode, the volume increases slowly until it reaches its final setting. Of course, you can set up the time span in which the volume increases by yourself. (Optional, deactivated by default)
• Power Nap Mode
  A “power nap” is a short and intensive nap. Just pick a time period and close your eyes!
• Arithmetic Problem
  You want to stop the alarm? First, you have to solve a little arithmetic problem. (Optional, deactivated by default)
• Speaking Clock
  A speech synthesis tells you the time and more. This feature is highly customisable and provides even informations on the weather.
• Internet-Radio-Stream
  Lasse dich sanft von deinem Lieblingsradiosender wecken.

Screenshots

Alarm preferences and more features

Alarm preferences

You can set up as many alarms as you want. For each alarm, you can set up seperately

• an alarm time
• a speaking clock with custom text
• week days on which the alarm is allowed to ring
• snooze time
• ring tone (including mp3 files on your sd card)
• volume
• vibration alarm
• and many other customizing options

General preferences

• Both flip’n'snooze and shake’n'stop features can be turned on or off.
• Test the acceleration sensor based features and adjust the shake-sensitivity.
• Because of comfort reasons, the volume does never turn on instantaneously. Either you activate the soft alarm mode or it will take 10s until the sound volume is totally turned on.
• AlarmDroid provides a status bar notification service. It shows how many alarms are active and when the next alarm will ring. This service will not stress your battery, but if you don’t like to have a notification symbol there the whole day, you can deactivate it.
• By default, you can adjust the volume also while the alarm is ringing. Change the volume with the volume buttons and hit the “stop” or the “snooze” button and the current volume setting will be saved.
  Because some people may simply push the volume buttons when they catch their ringing android phone, we provide an option to turn this feature off!
• Optional: You can make the alarm snoozing by pressing the power button.
• Optional: Long click for stop/snooze buttons
• Optional: Deactivate the lock screen when an alarm rings. (This option is activated by default. It does not work on every Android phone, dependend on the manufacturer.)
• Optional: Small Stop-button, large Snooze-Button

Future features

There are much more features planned, e.g. the following.

• Create playlists
• I thought about a “clap it off” feature that allowes the user to turn it off by clapping one’s hand, but actually I think my girlfriend might get angry with me when I clap my hands 8 o’clock in the morning..
• Select different volumes dependend on the current orientation of your phone while the alarm rings. (Because some phones are very quiet when they lie on their speaker. We want to regard this to make it more comfortable.)

Author’s comments

I attached much importance to a well-designed code that does not stress the battery — and in fact, it does not! — and that does its job as well as possible. I will first improve existing features. If they are completed, I will implement new ones. I think this procedure will guarantee the best quality for future versions.

I am very happy for every comment that helps to improve this app!

Your comments

Please leave a comment at
http://www.netzpurist.de/2010/08/alarmdroid-comments/!

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¹) This app is designed for Android 2.1 and higher. It also works with 1.5 and 1.6, but there are some contraints, e.g. the Notification is not persistent and will be hidden after clicking the “Clear” button.

If everything went OK, the whole red line should be covered by blue dots. But the result seems to be very odd, because there are many alarm events just missing, as you can see in this plot. So it’s not only that the CPU was not waked up correctly, it’s even that these alarm events are completely removed.
The second point: The user turned on the screen three times. At (roughly) half past two, at half past eight and finally at 10 o’clock. At these times, the last scheduled alarm, which was not fired up yet, was processed. Because the CPU stayed on for a short while at these times, multiple events went off (in the intended sequential way). Here, it is important to mention that the first event (respectively) of these sequences was delayed by an arbitrary amount of time (one minute at the maximum, of course).The following events had no time delay.

So my guess: Samsung avoids waking up the CPU from standby mode in general. The alarm events are not fired up until the user turns on the screen. This may save battery power in an efficient way, but it makes it impossible to schedule time-dependend tasks (like AlarmDroid does). This avoids abuse by unpractised application developers, but also rattens serious applicatoins.
And secondly: when scheduling repeating events, all events except the most recent are removed. In the background of the assumption above, this actually makes sense because it avoids repeating the same task multiple times once the screen turns on. But it’s unreasonable with application development.

Workaround

I don’t think there is a workaround for these device/firmware combination. (I don’t know how former firmware versions behave.)

My recommendation

I’m sorry for all of you who buyed this phone. But my recommendation is to either buy another phone or to install an alternative firmware. The way it works now, you won’t enjoy Android very much because the AlarmManager is one of the most important tools in Android and it is used in many applications.