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May

[Video] Must-See Home Automation Project Controls Lights And Entertainment Center By Voice, Starfleet Captain's Chair Still On Backorder

Posted by Cody Toombs in News, Tips & Tutorials, Videos

Let's be honest, most of us will never get to live in a crazy futuristic home like the Jetsons, but that doesn't mean we can't strive for a few of the simple luxuries. To that end, Doug Gregory is on track to make his living room smarter than the bridge of the USS Enterprise, all with a few electronic controllers and extensive use of Tasker. There's no way around it, you really need to see the video for this one.

Not counting home theater equipment and the Nexus 4, Doug was able to put everything together for less than $300, but he appears to have had the advantage of working for an authorized dealer.

May

Automagic Is Tasker With Easy-To-Use Flowcharts, But Is That Enough? [Hands-On]

Posted by Bertel King, Jr. in App Reviews, Applications, News

Automagic attempts to be Tasker, only easier to use. The problem is that Tasker is already pretty straightforward, and while Automagic makes certain things easier, it makes others more difficult. Still, a little competition never hurt anyone, and there are many ways Automagic challenges Tasker to step up its game.

What it Does

The premise behind Automagic is nothing new. It is an app that automates tasks based on a wide range of variables. For example, you can tell Automagic to turn off auto-brightness when your phone's battery dips below 50%. If you don't want to receive any distractions while you're at your sweetheart's house, you can automagically set your phone to airplane mode when you're within 200 meters of their address.

Mar

[Deal Alert] Tasker On Sale For Just $1.99 (Down From $6.49)

Posted by Cody Toombs in Applications, Deals, News

Hot on the heels of Tasker's official 4.0 release which brings a Holo-styled UI for users on Android 4.0+, Crafty Apps has just dropped the price to $1.99. Normally priced at $6.49, this is the first time any of us can recall the popular automation app having ever been on sale.

If you haven't heard of Tasker, it has long stood as the most popular automation app for Android. While not the easiest to learn or the most user friendly, its power and flexibility remain mostly unrivaled, even becoming the platform to build a game.

There are no indications of how long the sale will last or if this may be a permanent price change, but we are reaching out to the developer for clarification.

Mar

Tasker's Redesigned Holo-fied App Is Out Of Beta And In The Play Store, Now Split Into Two Interfaces According To Android Version

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Applications, News

Back in January, Tasker dev Crafty Apps showed off the app's upcoming redesign, which finally brings the Holo look to the table. Now, that update has left its beta stages and made its way into the Play Store. Yay for that!

However, there's a catch: the new look isn't for everyone. The app will actually continue to show the existing interface for those on Gingerbread and under, while those on Android 4.0+ get the pretty new UI. Sorry, guys.

But, for those who get to take advantage of the "new" Tasker, you get all new icons (200 each for Holo light and Holo dark), new states, events and actions; and oodles of new improvements and fixes.

Mar

Caedere Is A Game Built Entirely With Tasker, Because Why Not?

Posted by Cody Toombs in Games, News

This is one of those things that you just have to see to believe. Developer Dave Sapien is working on an "experimental pop up text adventure" that relies on Tasker as the development environment and Tasker App Factory to package the apk. This isn't a particularly easy feat, given that the platform is mostly unsuitable for complicated sounds and graphics. His solution is to make the entire game out of simple dialog boxes, each with two options that guide a player through the story. Around the 13th and 17th hour of every day (1pm and 5pm, respectively), players are presented with a new bite-sized adventure.

Feb

Pebble Notifier Now Works Without Tasker, Adds Selective App Notifications

Posted by Jeremiah Rice in Applications, News

Last week we told you about Pebble Notifier, an app that allows Tasker to send updates to the Pebble smartwatch over Bluetooth. Developer Dattas Moonchaser has updated the plugin to a full, independent app: you no longer need Tasker to send updates to your watch. (You'll still need the official Pebble app.) As you probably know, while Tasker is an incredibly powerful piece of software, it's also very difficult to learn and master, so the update should make it useful for a larger percentage of Pebble owners.

Even better, the app can selectively include or exclude apps from its "watched" list, a great help to anyone who was inundated with relatively useless updates when they tried it out.

Feb

[New App] Pebble Notifier Tasker Plugin Makes The Smartwatch Approximately 300 Times More Useful

Posted by Jeremiah Rice in Apps/Games, News

We love Tasker. And we mostly love the Pebble Smartwatch. But there's no denying that the utility of the Pebble is somewhat limited - right now you get calls, emails, texts, Facebook, and a few more remote notifications. With the Pebble Notifier plugin for Tasker, the Swiss Army knife of Android apps can send alerts for anything and everything happening on your phone. It may be the single most useful thing that could happen to Pebble.

Naturally, the official Pebble app is necessary to make use of the bridge, and the Tasker accessibility service needs to be enabled. (Settings>Accessibility>Set Tasker to "On.") Developer Dattas Moonchaser (yes, really, we couldn't make that up) has kindly released the plugin free of charge, along with the source code and a few basic Tasker profiles.

Jan

Check Out These Super-Clean Nexus 7 Custom Car Mounts [Updated]

Posted by Ryan Whitwam in ASUS, News, Nexus 7

Stop holding your Nexus 7 in your hands like a chump and check this out. These industrious modders have built and installed complete Nexus 7 mounting systems in a Subaru STi and Toyota Celica. The Toyota owner even created a launcher skin to go with the mod. The skin, of course, is based on Knight Rider (seen below).

Celica Mod

The modder with the Toyota used Nova Launcher, UCCW, and Simple Text to build a simple Knight Rider UI that gives access to the most commonly used functions. Having something like this in your dash is probably not the safest thing, so cutting down on distraction is a good call.

Jan

There's A New Tasker Beta In Town And It's Got A Redesigned Holo UI

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in Applications, News

Remember back when Google showed off what Tasker could look like if it updated to support the new ICS guidelines and we all drooled? Then the dev behind it said that there's already a UI overhaul in the works and we started squirming in our seats? Well, today's the day we all freak out, because today the developer released a beta of Tasker 4.0b4 that shows off a completely redesigned interface.

If you want to get in on this action, you can download the APK here. There are two separate download links, one for those who have purchased Tasker from the developer directly in the past, and one for those who bought it from the Play Store.

Dec

Tasker's Developer Is Working On A UI Overhaul Too, Plus A Bunch Of Other Updates

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in Applications, News

Last Updated: December 9th, 2012

A few days ago, we were treated to a lovely look at what Tasker, the highly-customizable Android automation app, could look like if it got a nice facelift. Unfortunately, this was done by the Android team and was not representative of any real work being done by the developer. As it turns out, though, the developer behind said application is working on a holo conversion. There are quite a few obstacles to deal with in the meantime:

I started working on a holo conversion about a week ago coincidentally, with half the goal being use of the holo conventions and half replacing under-the-hood deprecated APIs for dialogs etc.