Many cellphones now-a-days utilize GPS location tracking or Triangulation between cellphone towers to tell where it is on Earth. E911 is an example of such technologies which allow your phone to be traced within 50 feet of your current location.

When you walk into work, you may adjust the volume to 'Vibrate' or 'Silent' mode. Instead of manually doing this every time you walk into work, your phone will know where it is and by a rule set by you in the phone, will follow commands to change the ringtone from any volume to vibrate or silent.

Perhaps you go to your Grandmother's Nursing Center. You wouldn't want to scare or offend your Grandmother with your obscene, 'hip' ringtone, would you? Create a rule that changes your ringtone from the 'hip' one to a more acceptable one.

While travelling in a car, your location constantly changes. When travelling, you may have the radio up loud so you could choose to have the phone alert you with both a ringtone and vibrate. Same thing goes if you like to drive in silence. Just set a rule to have your phone turn down the volume of the ringtone.

If you adjust your ringtone in a new location, your phone may ask you to save this action for your next visit and have toggle-options for 'return to previous alert mode when leaving area'. A radius will also be set in the preferences to choose a large or small area.
-- crazyrog17, Sep 02 2008

I like this one. As a theatre patron and sometimes stage crew, I would really like it if there were some way to remotely set a preffered setting. The user would still have to be able to override it, but unless they have, it would default to whatever a business or location requests (silent mode in theatres, libraries and hospitals, for instance).
-- MechE, Sep 02 2008


I like it as well, but the hackers are going to raise bloody hell with it.
-- normzone, Sep 02 2008


I think specific implementations of this are commonplace - see link for first example I could remember.
-- neilp, Sep 03 2008


I saw another one the other day which changes the 'profile' based on accelerometer settings - e.g. if you're running it makes the phone ring louder.
-- neilp, Sep 03 2008


All settings would be on the phone itself. Unless you yourself set your phone to be silent every time you go to the theaters, it would ring as normal. No input from exterior sources could change the settings.
-- crazyrog17, Sep 04 2008



random, halfbakery