Advancements in technology in recent years have made it possible to view and track any location from your mobile device. With the help of maps and GPS tracking, many apps help you to keep in contact with your family, kids, friends and colleagues. Others can let you trace your lost or stolen devices, or even monitor your staff for efficient business management.
Here are 7 of the best apps to track and share locations using Android and iOS devices.
Glympse
Glympse is one of the most popular location tracking and sharing apps that help you stay connected with your family, friends, and colleagues while keeping your privacy intact. It allows seamless location sharing across different platforms and it’s customizable for individual tracking.
Highlights:
- Real-time tracking of location
- Geofencing
- Works with Android and iOS devices
- Sign-up not required
- Can create user groups
- In-app messaging and navigation
- Customizable settings to enable personalized tracking
- Apple Watch support
Life360
Life360 is another excellent app for real-time location tracking and sharing with your friends, family, and kids which works with all your devices including your smartphone, computer, or tablet. One its exceptional features is that it can send emergency alerts to your contacts and even make an automatic call for an ambulance if required, based on tracking results.
Highlights
- Emergency safety alert to close contacts and automatic ambulance call feature
- Location sharing in real-time
- Private contact groups
- Alerts when a private group member enters or exits
- Group chat feature
- Device tracking if stolen or lost
- Strict privacy with an invite-only feature
- Works for both Android and iOS devices
Google Maps
One of the fastest and easiest apps to use, Google-Maps is a versatile location tool used by many people around the world to precisely track and share locations, routes, and destinations in real-time. Considered one of the best location apps, it has many exceptional features with a wide variety of applications and is highly customizable.
Highlights
- Past locations timeline
- Helps in discovering new destinations
- Provides guides for restaurants and tourist spots
- Offline maps feature
- Indoor maps to find the way inside malls, museums, etc.
- Alert for traffic situations and real-time ETA
- Automatic rerouting of traffic for a smooth ride
- Ride-share with live information
- Customizable
- Works with iOS and Android
Find My Kids
This is one of the best location-tracking apps, mainly used by parents to track their kids and make sure they’re safe. It offers a range of benefits like location history and emergency messaging to ensure the safety of your kids while they’re at school, hanging out with friends, or wherever else in the outside world.
Highlights
- Access to past locations anytime using location history
- Emergency SOS alerts
- Direct messaging and poke option to send alerts
- Real-time tracking of device
- Works with Android and iOS devices
- Add or remove contacts
- Instant voice messaging
Safe 365
This is yet another efficient app for real-time location tracking of your family and close contacts. It is used by many people to track their parents and grandparents, especially those who may need monitoring and emergency assistance. The app can send you a notification when your elders leave or enter their homes to make sure they’re safe.
Highlights
- Three different modes – exact location, approximate location, and routes
- Instant alerts
- Provision to send ‘battery down’ warning
- Exclusive panic button for emergency services
- Switch on or off location sharing
- Alerts when parents/grandparents enter or exit their home
- Daily routines set up
Find My Device
‘Find My Device’ is a location tracking app from Google and is especially useful in locating your smartphone or mobile device when it is misplaced or lost. This is an efficient tool to maintain your digital privacy and evens allows you to remotely erase sensitive data from your device and perform a factory reset.
Highlights
- Remote erasure of private data and factory setting on you device
- Maps feature
- Numerous indoor maps for malls, airports, museums, and large buildings
- Locking of the device with a special message and contact number
- Functions also in silent mode
- Continuously tracks the battery
- Works on Android
Hubstaff
Hubstaff is a great location tracking apps for tracking employees. It is suitable for large and small organizations, managing the workforce with efficient Geofencing capabilities. It provides many insights for staffing, time-management, productivity management, and payroll integration.
Highlights
- Works with iOS and Android
- Can be used for all sizes of organizations
- Geofencing and precise location
- Efficient tracking of outdoor sales staff and other field employees
- Can manage employees at remote branches of a company and client locations
- Information of time spent by employees at each client and in transit
- Automatic activation when a worker enters or leaves a place
- Customization for individual workers
- Instant alerts for specific situations
- Can function in conjunction with many other business programs
Whether you use an iPhone or Android smartphone, you’ll find any number of handy apps with versatile features to track your family and kids and keep in touch with your colleagues and friends. While some of them provide security, safety, and even life-saving features, some others help with efficient business management.