There are a lot of LBS ideas which are not really applicable. In my opinion “Locale” is one of the more promising examples for LBS.

The following text on the start site of “Locale” points out why this tool could be useful:

In March 2005, Judge Robert Restaino jailed 46 people when a mobile phone rang in his New York courtroom and no one would admit responsibility.

So we invented Locale. Problem solved.

Locale is an Android application that allows to create situations under which your phone settings should change. These situations depends on your current location. For example you can set a situation “At Work“. which refers to your working location 100 Main Street. If you are at this address your ringtone is set to mute and vibration is turned on. With this application you can manage different phone settings for various locations. This is not only applicable for ringtones. You can also display messages, if you enter your home and your battery power is less than 20%, reminding to charge your phone.

Locale utilize Android positioning features like A-GPS and WiFi positioning. The user interaction is mainly done via the touch screen. Locale is extensible through an API, where developer could integrate third party plug-ins. By the way Locale is one of the winners of Google’s Adroid Developer Challenge.

[Link: http://www.androidlocale.com]