Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
• Additionally, unlike Location Services on the iPhone or cellular iPad that
use GPS, OS X Mountain Lion uses the physical location of the Wi-Fi base
station you're connected to in order to know where you are, as reported
by a huge database that covers most if not all of the western world and
almost certainly including your home and place of work. Although surpris-
ingly accurate, there will inevitably be some omissions in this database
—if your workplace installed a new Wi-Fi base station yesterday, for
example, then it won't yet be on the database. The location database that
OS X uses is compiled by specially modified cars driving up and down
every street and highway in the country sensing Wi-Fi base stations and
noting their locations, and in my experience I've found Wi-Fi routers in
locations not accessible by car are also omitted, such as Wi-Fi routers
inside shopping malls.
• Dismissing a location-based alert for a reminder doesn't clear the reminder
itself. You must still manually put a check in the box alongside the
reminder in the Reminders app on your Mac or iPhone/iPad/iPod touch.
Until you do this, the alert will repeat each and every time your location
matches its specification (that is, when you leave home or when you arrive
at work, to continue the two examples mentioned earlier).
Creating a Location-Based Alert for a Reminder
Here's how to create a location-based reminder:
1.
Create the reminder in the usual way in the Reminders app by clicking
the plus button at the top right of the program window, before typing the
nature of the reminder into the field.
2.
Click the “i” icon at the right of the reminder, or double-click the
reminder's entry in the list if this isn't visible. This will pop out a window
near the top of which will be a heading marked “remind me,” beneath
which you can select On a Day to create a time-based reminder or At a
Location. You can check both to be reminded only at a certain time
or
when you leave or arrive at a location—whichever occurs first. Note that
time-based reminders aren't limited to just the day; you can set the hour
and minutes too.
3.
Check At a Location, and then in the field below you can either start
typing the first line of the address or, perhaps more productively, type
the ZIP/postal code (note that “Current Location” might automatically
appear, but you can over-type this). Hit
TAB
when you've finished typing,
