Loopt to work in the background on iPhone via deal with AT&T
businessinsider.com
businessinsider.com
Maybe it's just me, but would anyone here pay $3.99 per month for this?
They already pay hundreds of dollars a year for things like this: http://www.flexispy.com/spyphone-flexispy-apple-iphone.htm
And surely AT&T could just provide a simple "track this phone" service themselves and cut out loopt altogether for this particular use case.
$9.99/month for two family members. $14.99/month for up to five.
There's no way in hell I'd want my kids "friends" (who knows who they friend on loopt) seeing where my kid is at.
All that being said, I wonder if Loopt could offer a "for parents" app that just allows parents to see where their kids are (w/o all the other app functionality). I'd bet a ton of parents would pay for that.
We all know that teenagers are plenty creative when it comes to sneaking around. 1) drop cell phone at friends house and enable call forwarding. 2) do whatever you want.
Probably not, but I think the other 90% of the world might. My cell phone bill is high because I pay $15 extra for tethering. My little sister's cell phone bill is high because she buys ringtones. As much as I think that's a waste, way more people buy the latter than the former.
They have had time, however, to try to squeeze as much money from this venture as possible while they still have exclusivity. I've now received two emails from AT&T about their navigation app. They charge $9.99 per month for it. How many other iPhone app developers can send out an email to every single iPhone owner at will? Zero. The rest of us have to charge 99 cents (one time) if we want to get noticed on the App Store.
And now that they've cashed in on Apple's brilliance and innovation, they're going to do the same with Loopt. They are the perfect example of a company willing to do whatever it takes to increase profits, but not willing to do much of anything to help their customers.
I can understand bashing AT&T I hate their service, but I think Loopt charges for their service on most providers.
Oh and the $9.99 per month thing made me choke too. Especially when TomTom has a $99 app.
Not that its clear if map updates will be free or in-app purchases with TomTom.
It uses OpenStreetMap instead of the proprietary map databases, but hey, I'll take 90% as good for 2% of the price any day.
How do you think us Verizon customers feel? At least you get phones with WiFi...
1. Health care reform
2. Phone network reform?
If you're trying to make a snarky comment about how phones aren't important when compared to health care, I actually would find it quite refreshing if everyone stopped talking about health care, and started talking about how America's technological infrastructure is years behind.
Overall if you are one who prefers text based communication over voice & loathe AT&T, you still can use an iPod Touch via Wifi or buy a Verizon or Sprint MiFi and use that as your communication device. Of course there are issues with doing this, but last two months has worked great for me.
It all depends on your priorities. I personally am against nationalized health care, and, more importantly, all this "debate" is doing is pulling everyone even farther and farther apart. Everyone is yelling and screaming and calling each other names, and I'm frankly sick of it.
> That argument is based on other countries who are the size of Texas to Rhode Island.
Normally, I'd agree with you. But I live in Pittsburgh, down the street from CMU, and several of my friends can't even get FIOS. Let alone the kind of crazy awesome internet they have in Japan or South Korea. You can't get that anywhere in the US. Of course, rural areas aren't going to be able to get fiber to their homes, but there's no reason to be so far behind in urban areas.
And while the MiFi seems interesting, it's completely unreasonable that I can't just get wifi built into my phone. I don't want to carry around a whole second box for something that should just be built in.
Overall I am sure when LTE (Verizon's 4G) & or Wimax (Clearwire) offer ubiquitous coverage will start to see Internet mobile devices with built in 4G. Though carrier's don't want to be dumb pipes, but I'm thinking that's what they'll become, as us consumers only need/want them for the pipe!
I agree that carriers will have to become dumb pipes... if they don't want to be a dumb pipe, they should let someone else be one, and just build off of that. Then again, with all of the money and history that's involved in the telecommunications industry, I'll imagine that we'll be held back for quite a while longer.
If health care is going to be nationalized, it can't be a productive part of the economy anymore. It's already (probably) a net drain on public resources. If we're gonna have something like public health care, we need a way to pay for it. Fixing our technology infrastructure enables this country to create more wealth.
You can run Latitude on the iPhone but the whole no-background-apps thing renders it nearly useless.
I was told I shouldn't mention founders of YC-funded companies in this list. But Sam Altman can't be stopped by such flimsy rules. If he wants to be on this list, he's going to be.
Honestly, Sam is, along with Steve Jobs, the founder I refer to most when I'm advising startups. On questions of design, I ask "What would Steve do?" but on questions of strategy or ambition I ask "What would Sama do?"
What I learned from meeting Sama is that the doctrine of the elect applies to startups. It applies way less than most people think: startup investing does not consist of trying to pick winners the way you might in a horse race. But there are a few people with such force of will that they're going to get whatever they want.
(source: http://www.paulgraham.com/5founders.html)
Is Loopt really that great? Does he prove that it makes money for the phone company? I guess that must be the pitch, since it would be easier to track what's driving spending from a pre-pay customer.
It feels like one of those "Well, if I let YOU do it I have to let EVERYONE do it" type of things, and AT&T should have said no.
I also find it interesting that Apple isn't mentioned anywhere in the deal, which is strange because the article makes it seem that AT&T has the power to just tell Apple to break one of its developer rules for a special case. Shady, if I do say so myself.
"The app isn't running in the background; it's working server-to-server."
So presumably all they've done is a deal with AT&T to access the cell-location data for a subscriber, and using the app to tie that into their Loopt identity. Nothing special going on inside the iPhone OS.
It wouldn't have to happen every time, but once every 5-10 minutes would be a good balance of phone battery and timeliness.
They are a company that wants to make money; evidently they've decided that this will help them do so.
If anything, other developers should be excited about the fact that there may be some other options for monetization than direct app store sales.
The real question is why AT&T is proactively tracking phone location (if they are).
Are these professionals really the target market for Loopt though? Loopt seems more useful to teens/college kids etc.
I was planning to write something which alternates between Sosumi and Clarke (Skyhook FireEagle updater for Mac) so when you are at your computer and updating you don't eat into your iPhone battery.
Of course, that's a total hack ;)
Besides if you're using AT&T you're either ignorant or unconcerned about privacy. They have looong history going back to the Clipper chip, PATRIOT act era wiretaps, of "selling out" their customers.
as an iphone owner: oh no WAY am i going to pay extra for that. at&t already charges through the nose and gives me lousy service in return.