This article was published on June 6, 2011

LookMobile gives you remote access to your Android phone


LookMobile gives you remote access to your Android phone

Let’s admit it, we’re all practically glued to our smartphones. Most of us probably have a pretty unhealthy relationship with our phones that borders on obsessive.

Despite these addictions, I’m sure some of us have been known to forget our phones at home, and spend the entire day wondering who called us or sent us a message, or even struggling to remember a phone number in our contact list. That’s where LookMobile comes in. This free Android app gives you the peace of mind of being able to access some of the basic features of your phone, so you don’t feel completely cut off from the world.

Available as a free download from the Android Market, after installing LookMobile you will have to connect it to your Facebook account. We weren’t thrilled with the inability to create an account without having to connect directly to Facebook, but that may be a price many are willing to pay for the app’s convenience. Once you’ve logged in on your phone, essentially authorizing the app, you can then access the features from LookMobile’s website using any browser.

Logging in, once again, via Facebook on a browser, you’ll be met with a list of the phones that are connected to your Facebook account.

After selecting your phone you will then be able to access the app’s three main features. First you can read and reply to all SMS messages you’ve received on your phone, as well as send new messages. The ability to access other popular messaging applications such as Whatsapp would put LookMobile in a league of its own.

Your recent calls can be viewed in the Call Log tab, with each listing accompanied by your contact’s picture from your phone, and their phone number.

Lastly, under the Contacts tab, you can see your entire address book, with each listing accompanied by the image and all the contact information you have saved on your phone.

The use of an app like LookMobile does bring certain questions to the forefront about privacy. Are you comfortable potentially putting your entire contact list into the hands of a third party along with your private messages?

LookMobile states that your data is not seen by its operators despite the fact that it’s processed on its servers. The data is only available for the time that it is transferred, after which it’s discarded. In addition, after you log out from the website, all of your cached data is also discarded. It seems that a conscious decision has to be made about the risk you are taking when putting potentially private data in the hands of developers.

Is LookMobile an app that you could see yourself using? Let us know in the comments.

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