This started life as an idea
for a boxout in an article for PDA Essentials magazine. How often have you been
stuck in a meeting (or long, boring conversation) and desperately wanted a good
excuse to leave? Assuming you can't signal a secretary to call you up, why not
make it easy to queue up an authentic phone ringing sound on your P800 or P900
in a minute or so's time? You then rise from your seat, going 'Hello? Yes?
Excuse me, I must take this call..."
My idea was to make a little application out of this, but
it turns out that it's trivial in UIQ's Time application, with the right phone
sound queued up. It can be accomplished in three taps (two, if Time is already
in the foreground). I put Time on my top 'Application Shortcuts', with one of
my three alarm slots used for the bogus call. If you don't already have a
suitable ringing sound sample, use this one instead.
The nice thing is that UIQ automatically assumes that you
want the alarm at the end of the next minute, with your last chosen alarm
sound. So, as I say, once you've set this up once, you can potentially queue a
new one up in two screen taps.
The key to the illusion working, of course, is to queue it
up as if you're checking your calendar, or making a note, then close your flip
and put your smartphone aside. Then, when it rings, you act surprised, pick it
up and press the same flip button to acknowledge the 'alarm' as you would to
answer a normal phone call. |