No doubt, Apple's Find My Friends is a smart way to know where everyone you care about is right now. At least, it is if they all have iPhones, and it is if neither you nor they think this is beyond creepy. You're not going to be following their every move, but you could -- and if that doesn't give you pause, this should: they'd be able to follow your every move, too. The newly-updated
99check 1.6 gives you the benefits of Find My Friends, without the Big Brother don't-stray-from-the-path problems of Apple's solution.
It's a clever idea that uses how every photo we take on our iPhones comes with some location data embedded in it -- unless you go to some lengths to stop that, and you might well. We don't know where the line is for you between convenience, usefulness and privacy, but we won't ever leave Find My Friends on -- but we will post photos on Facebook that have location data in them. What 99check does is read that data, and display it for you.
Specifically, it reads the data on photographs that your friend or perhaps child have elected to take in order to send to you. You can't read their photos, they have to explicitly take a shot in order to send to you. The 99check app facilitates that by including a selfie button, and it facilitates your kids remembering to do this by including notifications. If you haven't heard from your kids or your partner or whomever in a while, swipe to send them a nudge, and they get an iOS 9 notification.
They can then take a snap, and it goes right back to you where their location is displayed on a map. Tap to look at the photo they took, and you get to see their nice smiling face, plus the location data written out as an approximate address.
This all works, and it all works fine. We need to say that it's taken until version 1.6, though: previous ones we've been testing in the last few weeks had peculiar bugs with how you log in to the service, how you get your kids to log in, and how you connect your family together. They were peculiar, in that it's hard to see how they can have been missed for 1.5 versions. For instance, there was one where you couldn't log in if you wrote your family member's email address with an initial capital letter –– but the app itself (or more accurately, Apple's keyboard) autocapitalized it.
That's been fixed, and so have other related issues we kept getting, but we did keep getting them -- so as much as we like the cleverness of the idea, we're cautious about recommending it. Do give it a go, and especially as it's free to use.
The price is something that is also a little confusing: you can set up and use the app for free, but there is a Premium subscription version. The developer says this gives you unlimited use: we're just not clear where the limits are. It's a moot point at the moment, because the Premium features have been unlocked for all users, though, so worry about it later if you find you love the app.
99check 1.6.1 requires iOS 8.0 or higher, and
is free on the App Store with an optional in-app subscription purchase of $3 for unlimited features.
Who is 99check for:
Parents and children, chiefly, but also anyone who just needs to keep tabs on someone else who is fine with them doing that.
Who is 99check not for:
Find My Friends is better when you're organizing an event, and it can show you that people are near, particularly as you can then tell them no, no, you said turn left there.
-- William Gallagher (
@WGallagher)
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