500,000 Llamas

Just a quick post to say thanks for the Llama love over the past two years and a bit, and for recommending it to all your friends.

Llama's download counter has just clicked over 500,000, which is rather awesome... and also making me think I should have charged a quid for it. Ah well! :D

Here's to many more happy years of Llama-ing, cheers!

MCC Llama

A few months have passed and I figured I should actually write a blog post. The main change in this version is Llama can now let you make events bassed off MCC and MNC. These are Mobile Country Code and Mobile Network Code, and lets your identify the phone network you are connected to. This will allow you to determine which country you are in, as well as a different way to check if you are roaming or not. Since I live in London, far away from any border, I haven't been able to test it 'in the field' (maybe I should go on holiday more?), so any feedback on how well it works is appreciated!

There's a few other changes too...

Llama.1.2013.03.29.2027

• MCC/MNC condition
• Added 'contentDescriptions' for accessibility, so blind people can use Llama easier
• Google Play bumped up their maximum in-app purchase price, so there's a new crazy donation option. If any one ever uses this:
  • You have far too much money!
  • Thanks! ;)
• Fixed scrolling problem in SignalLevelCondition
• Less crashy on ROMs with weird WiFi permissions
• Wireless charging added to charging condition
• Updated Japanese, Russian and Polish translations. Thanks guys!
• Keyboard now forced open in more text fields
• Added android.permission.ACCESS_SUPERUSER permission, which has a scary message on the Play Store install page. This may get relegated to something like the CALL_PHONE build of Llama, since I can predict the influx of 'OMFG WTF SUPERUSER' comments. Llama won't request it unless you use an action that requires it, so we shall see...

As usual, export your Llama data before installing test versions.

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Signal Strength Llama

The version contains one new condition and a handful of bug fixes.

The documentation for GSM signal levels is pretty good. However, I can't say the same for CDMA or TDMA networks. If your phone is a CDMA or TDMA phone please let me know how you get on with the signal strength condition.

Llama.1.2013.01.07.2205

• Roaming condition is alive
• Change ringer/silent/vibrate setting in profiles can be used without volumes again
• Wifi MAC address beacons also store their network name. Looks ugly for the mo.
• Devices with dodgy WiFi drivers/software no longer crash Llama because of the UPDATE_DEVICE_STATS permission problem. Instead, Llama will show an error notification.
• When checking if volumes have changed, Llama will now wait a bit after the call ends, because some phones were still reporting the wrong volume levels.
• Stop learning an area if it's deleted

As usual, back up you Llama data before installing test versions.

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And we're back.... for now

If you have a system volume defined in one of your profiles Llama will now set it before doing anything else. This means the system volume is likely* to get changed by your ringer volume if you have one defined in a profile. It also means that when Llama asks for silence, it won't then be forced into vibrate mode by the system volume setting.

* ringer and system volume are now linked for some versions of Android and some ROMs

If you have problems, email me. If lots of you have problems Llama's going to hibernate again until everyone and their phone is happy :)

Llama.1.2012.12.29.1412 is on the Play Store (in about 30 mins to 1 hour.)

Llama's having a quick break

Llama's off the market for now while I investigate a pain-in-the-butt problem involving silent mode, vibrate mode and the dreaded System Volume level.

Changing the system volume in Jelly Bean now changes the ringer volume. I can't find anywhere in the Android SDK that documents this, which is rather infuriating. Feel free to look through here and see if you can spot it.

Changing the ringer volume (or the system volume since they are now related) will flick a silent phone to vibrate, even if the new ringer volume is zero. So everyone that previously had a fairly sensible 'set system volumes to silent' may now find your phone will vibrate.

Fun fun fun.

Why were previous versions of Llama behaving? Because it was naive, and literally dumped out the values from a profile to the AudioManager. Now Llama tries to be slightly smarter about setting the values... e.g. if you choose a Silent ringer mode, it will set the volumes to zero, rather than the values you picked from the profile. However, this exacerbates the problem described above.

Anyhew...

I think it's fixed in this version, but no doubt there's some manufacturer out there that has tweaked their version of Android to have a system volume. Ideally, I'd want to hide the system volume from the profile editor if you're running Jelly Bean, but since there's now no way of knowing if a device supports system volumes or not it will have to stay :'(

I'll put this version on the market tomorrow morning, when I can fire-fight any more stupid that may arise.

Llama.1.2012.12.29.0128

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It'd be awesome if you could let me know if the above version works for you... ideally activating a loud, silent and vibrating profile, and letting me know if the volume icons changes to the correct one. Cheers!

It's market release day!

I've just pushed the most recent version of Llama to the Play store.

Llama.1.2012.12.28.1222

• Japanese translation
• Vibrate mode in ICS/Jelly Bean now handled as a special case, so that it changes more reliably
• Warning about using system volume in ICS/Jelly Bean... it seems to affect ringer volume :(

Head to the Google Play store to pick it up! (That last sentence is a bit optimisitic though... it takes about half hour for the update to appear in the Play store :)

Just a couple o' tweaks

Just a couple o' tweaks

Llama.1.2012.12.24.1708

• Tweaked how profiles are changed for ICS/Jelly Bean. These Android versions are slightly weird in that they set the phone to 'vibrate mode' if Llama sets the ringer volume to zero.
• 2G/3G action now CM10.1 friendly
• 'Ongoing notification without icon' setting now uses the nice 'minimum priority notification' available in Android 4.2

As usual, backup your settings before running test versions, just in case things are broke.

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