Apple Announces "Find My Friends" App - Keep Track of Family and Friends

[Akshay Masand]

During Apple’s “Let’s Talk iPhone” event at Cupertino, Apple SVP of iOS software, Scott Forstall unveiled a new feature that may seem very familiar to some: “Find My Friends”, a map-based app that will let you see where your friends and family members are, provided they have turned the location sharing feature on.
Once you start the app – each of the friends with this feature on will be indicated by a purplish orb, which could come in handy if you are trying to figure out how far someone has to go on their commute or where they are in a crowded location, such as an amusement park.

The app sounds pretty familiar to others such as Google’s Latitude, which has been doing the same since early 2009 (Latitude comes pre-installed alongside the Maps application on Android, though you have to opt into it). Apple’s iteration seems to include features that go a little above and beyond that. There is an option to share your location for a few hours at a time, with the feature automatically turning off at a specified hour. (A pretty good idea that will help cut back significantly on the creepy factor of the location sharing services). There is also another feature that will appeal to some parents: they can activate their location tracking on their children’s iPhone and use parental controls to ensure their kids can’t turn it off. Although this will probably irk plenty of children/teenagers it will probably be of great appeal to some parents out there.

All in all – the feature is an excellent addition that will surely attract the attention of many.

*Image courtesy of Engadget

[boxxa]

I really like this. Simple friend location without the public exposure of Facebook.

[LongN3ck]

Doesn't Loopt offer this already?! Not sure of the value, Apple seems to cherry pick features/apps that it likes and integrate them in to the latest iOS.

[raduga]

I really like this. Simple friend location without the public exposure of Facebook.

Me too,
but I dont have any friends.

Will this app find them for me???