Idea: When the phone enters into a given geographical location or makes a particular adjustment, the phone notifies others of this in some contextual way.
Scenario: After landing at the airport in Toronto, John must let his buddy Nils know that he has arrived. Traditionally, John would have to let his friend know manually, while trying to pack up his stuff and debarking from the plane. What if John's phone could use its built-in GPS to determine John's location, detect that he's arrived at his home airport and text his friend? Entirely configurable and based on simple explicit instructions, this feature could automatically trigger the sending of messages based on geographic location. The right information is given to the right people at the right time, all automatically.
People are forgetful, and often otherwise occupied when they should be communicating. If their phones could communicate for them based on some level of situational awareness, the minds of those they’re serving are left at ease. Life goes much more smoothly when all the proper folks have the knowledge they need at the right time in order to react appropriately to the knowledge in a timely manner. Too much time is wasted sending “are you there yet” and “i’m here” kind of messages - let’s automate that. (Also, remove possibilities for Butler lies — users aren’t honest.)
The infrastructure is in place for a system like this to exist; almost all smartphones have global positioning sensors built-in. While these, now, are generally used for generating directions on a map to a location from a user’s “current location,” there’s no reason this GPS system couldn’t also be used to trigger messages. What it now takes is access to the GPS and an app that can generate scenarios based on certain criteria or based on a previous situation that is, in a sense, “recorded.” Take arriving home at the airport as an example. The first time you use the system for this scenario, you would add a scenario that says every time you arrive at that airport and walk through a certain terminal for exiting passengers, a message is automatically sent out to your family to notify them of your arrival. Tie that into your flight data and it could even issue out an SMS with terminal/gate number so that whoever is picking you up can know where to be.
