The Magic Doorbell
Available in the iTunes store
The Magic Doorbell is an iPhone location aware dialer that connects people
from your address book to a location. When you visit a place or
select that place on the map, you can create a doorbell for that person
there.
The next time you are at that location the Magic Doorbell
will call the contact that you selected for that place.
$0.99
The Magic Doorbell
On this page
Who do you call when you get to work? Who do you call when you're at the luggage pickup at the airport?
The Magic Doorbell is a location aware dialer that lets you select a contact for a
particular place, and whenever you're there you can make your call without having to
look through your contact list.
Go to Bob's house - the doorbell calls bob. Go to Sally's house - the doorbell calls Sally.
Go to the map and add a doorbell anywhere. When you get there the Magic Doorbell will be
ready to call your selected contact.
If you make sales calls, what better way to contact your customers than to have a doorbell
ready when you get to their office?
Where ever you go, the Magic Doorbell will always be ready to call the person you
want to talk to.
Screens from the Magic Doorbell iPhone Application
Insider Information
When the app goes into the background, it tells the system to stop taking updates for the location.
This allows the iOS to turn off the GPS hardward. However, this also means that when it starts the
location service takes a while to find your actual position. Any time the app sees a location that is far away
from its last position it waits for additional updates to confirm the new location. This means that
when you start or restore the app in a brand new location, it will take three to four seconds for the
app to recognize the new location. Rather than flip the current doorbell as the location updates in and
out of range, the app will wait and then update the current doorbell once the new location is confirmed.
When you select a contact, the doorbell does not copy the phone number. It refers to the entry
in the contact database. You can update this entry at any time, and the doorbell will use the
new number. Notice that you can also update the label for the entry. When you return to the
Magic Doorbell app it will update to reflect the change. Each contact in the iPhone address
book can have multiple phone numbers. The doorbell is attached to one entry. You can added
and edit other entries without affecting the doorbell. However, if you delete that particular
phone number entry, or if you delete the contact, the associated doorbell will be deleted.
How the doorbell name gets set might be a little confusing. Each doorbell name carries an internal indicator
that tells the system whether the name was set automatically or manually. If you set the name manually
it will always keep that name, even if you update the contact. If the name is set automatically, then
updating the contact will also update the name of the doorbell. Once you manually set the name, then
changing the contact will not change the name. To go back to automatic naming, delete the doorbell
name by pressing the round x in the name box and then select the contact. The new automatic name
will be selected.
Thank you for taking time to visit the web site. If you have further questions or ideas for how
this app might be improved, an email would be very much appreciated. You may send your questions
and comments to daniel@arrenkyle.com.
Thank you.