Find My Friends - Creepy or Convenient?

There’s no doubt that smart devices and their many apps have made our lives significantly easier, often leaving us wondering how we lived without them in the first place. With these apps we’re never lost, can always find the best restaurant around and are never bored … ehem dirty birds.

But what about an app that allows you to track down your friends and see where they’re located? This is the idea behind Find My Friends – a free app that Apple came out with which allows consensual users of iOS gadgets – mainly iPhone, iPad and iPod touch owners – to find one another on a map.

Find My Friends taps into the device’s GPS signal to identify its geographical location or it could use Wi-Fi if, for example, you’re on an iPod touch or non-3G model, according to USA Today. But the app does require the new iOS 5 upgrade, as well as an iCloud account to work, but luckily both are free.

Once the app is set up all you have to do is simply invite your friends and, once they’ve accepted the initiation, you’ll be able to follow them – they will be seen as a colored orb on Google Maps. When you see your friends on Google Maps you can read the address of where they’re at, send a text message, video call them via FaceTime or get visual directions to where they are. Also, you can choose to share your location with a group of friends, see your own location on the map or disable the feature altogether, says USA Today.

This app raises some concerns over the issue of privacy though. Being able to be tracked down at all times can be seen as infringing on a person’s privacy. But, at the same time this app can be a handy and fun tool to see where friends and family are at any given time.