A few years ago, a group of friends and I were on the train in New York City, when one of the members of our group fell asleep. Being the great friends that we are, we snuck onto the next car and had a guy we didn’t know wake her up and tell her that the train was at the end of the line, and she must have missed her stop. Of course, she hadn’t really missed her stop- but if you’ve ever commuted regularly, and had that fear of missing your stop, now with Stop Alarm, whether your transit is on time or late, you can set an alarm that will go off whenever you arrive at your destination!
Developer’s Description:
Stop Alarm alerts you when you are close to your destination. Commuting on a train or bus and want to play a game or take a nap, Stop Alarm will let you know when you are there.
| Category | Score | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| Does it Fulfill its Purpose? | 14 | Stop Alarm includes a number of useful features. You can set your alarm points one of three ways- either by your current location with the GPS, by searching for an address, or by finding it on a map. For each alarm, you set the time that it searches (so your GPS doesn’t have to be on all the time). If you come close to that spot during the time period, your phone rings and/or vibrates (based on your settings) and an icon appears in the notification bar. The app itself worked well (even when I was on the phone), but its features were somewhat limited. It would be nice to see more options, such as the ability to set custom ringtones, activate/deactivate the notification, choose days of the week that it activated, set recurring alarms, or set how close to the target you need to be before the alarm activates. |
| Does it Look Good? | 13 | The style of Stop Alarm serves its purpose, but there are a few areas that could use some work. Some of the text is difficult to see with the backgrounds, and the ads don’t appear to be placed in a uniform position- some are higher in the blank space below the text, and others are lower. |
| Does it Run Well? | 18 | Stop Alarm handles its size and permissions well, running around 500KB. Its permissions include GPS, network access, the ability to prevent the phone from sleeping, vibrate, view network state, and start at boot. The only performance issue that users may encounter is that even with setting the time, the GPS still uses a lot of power. If you have the app activated for any substantial period of time it can eat up a lot of battery. |
| Is it Easy to Use? | 17 | Stop Alarm has a number of nice features, including a setup wizard that walks you through the creation of alarms. However, there is one feature that is missing that makes it a little more difficult to use- the inability to change alarms that you’ve set. Currently the only way to change alarms is to delete them and start over- making temporarily disabling or altering alarms more difficult than it could be. |
| Is This App Useful to Everybody? | 13 | There are a number of instances in which users would find this app useful. If you find yourself having a regular commute, as a passenger on a long trip hoping to be alerted before you reach a city, or any other instance in which you would need to know when you arrive at a certain location, this app could be a nice one for some users to have around. |
| Overall Score | 75 | Most alarms are activated by time- to have one that is activated by location is a neat idea, and one that many users may find very useful. Check this app out- especially if you have a longer commute by train or public transportation! |
Reviewed Version: 1.1
| Direct market access: |