This is usually for one of three reasons:

(1) Your sensors aren’t firing on all cylinders. 
While GPS is an amazing technology, there are times when it will have trouble getting a fix on your current location. This often happens when you’re indoors, in a tunnel, standing under an awning, or are trapped in a Faraday cage, etc. While your phone’s GPS will rarely fail to find you, it can be pretty imprecise. Rather than tracking you down to a precise spot, it might only be able to identify the block – or zipcode – that you’re standing in right now.

Imprecise readings from a GPS can be bad news for Saga. We rely on accurate readings from the GPS to understand whether you’re sitting at home – or on the running trail a mile away from your house. If Saga gets bad data coming in, we may be unable to do much more than make a wild guess as to where you really are.

(2) You’re at a not-so-popular location. 
You’ll find that Saga often prefers popular places to unpopular places when trying to figure out where you are. Hanging out at an obscure office next to a 5-star restaurant? Going to the dentist above a busy convenience store? Until Saga really gets to know you, it’ll think that you’re likely to go to the kinds of places that lots of other people go to.

Over time, however, Saga learns more about you – precisely in order to distinguish between the popular places you pass by everyday and the important (but less globally popular) places in your life.

Saga’s teachable, as well. Want Saga to “get” you faster? Tell Saga that it got your location right by hitting the Confirm button. And when Saga gets your location wrong, be sure to edit your location to where you actually are. You’ll find the next time, Saga won’t make the same mistake again.

(3) We don’t know about your location.
Saga knows about millions of locations all around the world. But there are also zillions of other locations that we know we don’t have in our database yet.

Some of these are “public” places, such as stores, playgrounds, schools, and offices. We’re adding thousands of new public locations each day from a wide range of data sources.

Other locations are “private” places, such as your home or that secret campsite you always go to on Memorial Day weekend. In order for Saga to find you at private places, you’ll have to create a new private venue in our database that Saga can use.
Here’s how to create a private venue:

• On your current location (or on an item in your history), tap the little pencil icon to edit.
• Choose ‘Create’ from the navigation bar above the map.
• Type in a name and address for your location, and tap ‘save.’

Private venues are just that — private. Saga doesn’t share private venues with anyone else.

Check out this video tutorial on how to edit your current location, for those times when Saga gets it wrong.

Meanwhile, we want to address some of the questions and issues we’ve been seeing. Here are the questions we get most often:

I requested an invite to Saga. How long do I have to wait to get in?

We’ve been flat-out humbled by the tons of folks who want invites to Saga. We try to let in as many users as we possibly can each week. The average wait time right now is about 10-14 days. If you’ve been waiting longer than that, contact support@aro.com and we’ll sort it out.

I reset my phone or got a new one. How do I get back into the Saga app?

We have to manually reset your account and invite you back in. Contact support@aro.com, and we will take care of this for you. We will wipe out your existing active account, then expedite your invitation.

Will there be an Android version of Saga? When?

Yes, we are working on an Android version of the app. We don’t know the release date just yet, but you can expect more news in the next couple of months.

Why does Saga use up so much battery?

It’s a fact of modern life: apps that use GPS and Wifi use up more battery than those that don’t. You can rest assured that improving battery life is our number one concern.

Saga uses the iPhone’s native Location Services Manager to use as little of your battery as possible. Unfortunately, running Saga 24/7 means that your battery won’t last as long as if you weren’t using Saga. And what’s worse, if you travel a lot, you can expect that your battery will drain even more quickly.

You can currently expect about 28 hours of battery life on a iPhone 4S, however.

How does Saga figure out where I live and work?

Saga takes a look at your typical day in order to figure out where you work and where you call home.

Saga starts by assuming that you’re relatively “normal”. We assume that you go to your workplace sometime during the daylight hours and you eventually come back to the same home base most nights to sleep.

Over time, we adjust those assumptions. Work third shift? We’ll eventually figure out that your schedule is different than other folks. Retired? We’ll eventually figure out that you’ve given up a daily commute. Work a strange schedule? Don’t worry, we’ll eventually figure it out — even if your boss keeps messing with your hours.

If you’re 9-to-5, Monday-to-Friday worker, we’ll figure out your home and work surprisingly quickly. If you’re more of a special case, it make take us some time — as many as 2-3 weeks may be required.

Do I have to use a Facebook account to login to Saga?

In a word: Yes. In three words: Yes, you do.

How to Edit your Current Location on Saga

via How to Edit your Current Location on Saga on Vimeo.

via How to Edit your Home and Work on SagaApp on Vimeo.

If you’ve already activated Saga, welcome! We can’t wait to show you what’s next.

If your account hasn’t been activated yet, we’re sorry for the inconvenience. We know there’s nothing worse than not being let in. Believe us, we’ve been there too.

So, what’s taking us so long? When will it be your “pre-ordained time”?  Honestly? As soon as possible. We’re working around the clock to keep up with all of the demand for Saga. But as much as we want to, we can’t just let everyone in all at once. Why?

First of all, we’ve gotta make sure that everyone who uses the app continues to have a great experience. We’re committed to recording as many of your daily adventures as possible — and to do that well, we can’t take a cycle off. We don’t want to miss a thing — no matter if it’s a right turn on your way home or an epic night out with your friends.

Second, we’re slightly obsessed about maintaining the security of your data. During these first early days, we’ve been double- and triple-checking to make sure that your data stays safe. We’ve liked what we’ve seen so far — more invites are on their way, we promise.

Can’t wait any longer? Come talk to us on Twitter, or contact support, or call us maybe — we’ll be standing by.

Happy adventuring. We can’t wait to share them with you!

Andy Hickl and the Saga Team

Today, assistants can perform a small set of tasks, each saving me a few precious steps (or clicks) along the way. That’s not the way it’s always going to be. In the future, assistants will be capable of doing more and more non-trivial things for us.

One school of thought says that assistants should be all about delegation. I pass tasks downstream, and in doing so, I reclaim my time and energy.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.  At A.R.O., we think the ultimate use case for intelligent software applications — like assistants — is much more basic. It’s helping us all make the most of our lives before we run out of time.

Assistants shouldn’t just take things off your proverbial plate — but rather, they should also look to put things on it as well. Your software assistant should guide you down paths less traveled — and aspire to help you be a better version of you.

It’s not enough to be just an assistant anymore. I like having an assistant. But I want a companion too.

A companion is more intimate. That’s the allure. It’s more personal, more…me. It’s additive, bringing new data and new considerations, looking around corners and recognizing patterns I can’t yet see.

With a companion, you’ll have to give more to get more, too. It’s more of a partnership, and a true love. A companion is an emotionally evolved species. Better put, a companion actually aspires to help me be a better human, and lead a better human life. A companion is about more than just finding me an ATM, conducting a web search, or deleting a calendar entry. It’s about achieving goals, and revealing truths.

At a time when Siri clones are sprouting up left and right, we’re all are wondering what’s next. We’re ready to let software assistants into our lives into a new way. We’re ready for a companion.

And A.R.O. is the company that will bring it to you. Stay tuned.