Life360 is the app that Apple’s Find my Friends should have been

Last week, I published an article with my opinions and thoughts on Apple’s “Find my friend” app. It came with mixed reviews in the comments, some of them being that I missed the point on the intention of Apple in publishing the app in the first place.

My opinion was that even as a family utility, Find my Friends completely missed the mark, because it’s difficult to even invite people to use the app with you. It’s too much work even for a family to use.

We found an app called “Life360” which says that since it launched last August, it has had over 5 million families sign up, and is growing at a 100,000 users a week rate for the past few months.

The app is simple to use, and the design is straight-forward and easy to get going for you and your family members.

Life360 Family Locator

You can choose to have your app running in the background at all times, or check-in to alert your family members and friends that you’re at a specific location. Or you can do both, however, leaving the app running in the background will suck up your battery life. We’re told that kids are more apt to use Life360 with the option of checking in, rather than it running constantly, which can be creepy.

Additionally, Life360 has a “panic” button that will send out a phone call, text, and email to all of the family members you have registered to share your location and check-ins with.

Life360 takes the location safety angle with its app by showing you registered sex offenders in the area you’re in right now, as well as local police and fire departments.

Other safety features

The app has more features on its website, where you can add medical information such as your Doctor’s contact information, your medical history, allergies, or special needs. This can help first responders if you truly do have an emergency.

There is clearly a market for a non-social-network family and friend oriented location-based mobile application. Life360 sounds like its it. With a great design for all major mobile platforms, as well as the web component, Life360 makes Find my Friends look as half-baked as I thought it was.

Interestingly enough, according to this demographic chart below, most of Life360‘s app users are Android based, and not iOS. Perhaps the company can start getting more traction now that Find my Friends has launched to not much fanfare.