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Shortcomings in iOS5 location-based reminders and existing mobile apps

In June, 2011, Apple announced that Location-Based Reminders would be a new feature of iOS5 on iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch devices.  Grizzly Analytics sees the Apple announcements as a tipping point that is likely to propel location-based reminders into the mass-market.


But Location-Based Reminders as announced by Apple, and as implemented by mobile apps currently on the market, have shortcomings that limit their usefulness.  They can remind users when they pass their neighborhood supermarket, but not when they pass any supermarket.  They can remind users when they’re near the store they need, but not when they’re driving along a route that will take them near the store soon.  They remind users regardless of the hours that a store is open and regardless of whether the items the user needs are in stock. And they don’t take traffic conditions into account in generating reminders.

All these shortcomings are the subject of active research by major mobile companies, including Microsoft, Apple, Nokia, Palm and many others.  In its latest market and technology trend report, Location-Based Reminders: Initial Implementations and Future Advances, Grizzly Analytics reviews research currently underway, identifies information being gathered in the local search and e-commerce markets (by Google, EBay, local.com and others) that will facilitate more powerful location-based reminders, and reports how these will enable location-based reminders to revolutionize how cellphone users manage tasks and schedules and how they find nearby places to carry out their to-do tasks.

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