When Apple released its new iOS 5 operating
system to go with its iPhone 4S, it touted a new application called "Find
My Friends" as a great way to track and meet up with friends. Similar in
concept to Google Latitude, Find My Friends lets users follow people who have
accepted requests in their own copies of the app. Once they give the thumbs up,
friends will appear both on a list of contacts and on a Google map.
As needed users can toggle parental and privacy controls.
The most important of these may be temporary sharing, which will automatically
stop tracking by others after a certain length of time. Find My Friends is a
free universal app for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, but requires
both iOS 5 and an iCloud account.
While this social application might be quite useful for
buddies to have fun staking and meeting each other unexpectedly, some users
might find suitable applications to get is utilized. If the online posts
appearing on a chat forum at MacRumors.com are for real, "Find My
Friends" may have already claimed its first marriage.
October 15, 2011 on MacRumors, a man saying he lived in New York City
Divorcing wife. Thanks iPhone 4s and Find My Friends.
I got my wife a new 4s
and loaded up find my friends without her knowing. She told me she was at her
friends house in the east village. I've had suspicions about her meeting this
guy who live uptown. Lo and behold, Find my Friends has her right there.
I just texted her asking where she was and the dumb b!otch said she was on10th Street
thankfully, she's the rich one.
I just texted her asking where she was and the dumb b!otch said she was on
thankfully, she's the rich one.
It has not been determined whether the story posted on
MacRumors was, in fact, authentic, and the man did not immediately reply to a
request from ABC News for comment. But more than 100,000 people have viewed the
posts, according to MacRumors. More than 300 of them replied with expressions
of sympathy, skepticism and -- this being the Internet -- a few less-than-savory
jokes.
Arnold Kim, the editorial director of MacRumors, said it was
"definitely a busy thread."
MacRumors did not try to verify the man's story (if, in
fact, it was a man), but said everyone who registers for its forums has to
validate their email when they register.
"Find My Friends" uses the iPhone or iPad's
built-in Global Positioning System to see your friends' locations on a map on
the screen of your device. GPS can be accurate to within a few feet for
civilian uses.
Apple says "The Find My Friends app is a great way to
share your location with people who are important to you" -- whether
you're trying to meet friends at a crowded concert or make sure your kids get
safely home from school.
The man was back with a new post less than an hour later,
including a couple of screen grabs showing the location of his wife was on East
65th St., though she sent him a text message saying, "Was hard to find
stupid cab hate meat packing...."
The husband again: "She
said she is in meat packing district which is on 12th street
How true the story is? Or that is a marketing trick of the
Apple developers? Or that is application developers? In any case, the associated
buzz will make the trick. The software is free for to use, so there is no
financial barrier for its installation.
In any case, if you like the application, and its potential,
you should be aware on the possible negative outcomes, not being considered.
Once you're being followed by someone, they can discover
your location, or at least the location of your phone, at any time, with three
exceptions:
- When your phone is turned off or otherwise off the grid,
- After you've deleted that person from your list of followers, or
- When you go into Hide mode, which you find under the Me menu at the bottom of the screen.
Note that deleting someone from the list of people you're
following is different than deleting a person from your list of people allowed following
you. Also, you can still see the locations of other people when you're in Hide
mode.
One of Find My Friends' best features is the Temporary mode
found in the top-level menu. This allows you to set up select windows of time,
adjustable to the half-hour, in which you're able to follow another person and
let him or her follow you. Once the time window has expired, you're unfindable
to each other and will have to submit new requests to once again appear on each
others' maps.
This is nice for two reasons. 1) People forget. If you
really want to be visible to this person only for a select amount of time, but
then you forget to manually turn off access for days/weeks/months, it leaves
you with a very strange feeling. 2) A temporary invitation that automatically
expires just seems smoother than actively defriending someone.
Sources and Additional
Information:
