There seems to be an uptick in Foursquare Twitter updates on my timeline, alerting me of my friends’ current locations, so it’s no surprise that a new geotracking iPhone app, Mobcast (free), has recently launched in the iTunes App Store.
Mobcast’s arguably best and worst feature is that it only works with Facebook. You log in using your existing Facebook account, and Mobcast finds your Facebook friends who are also using the iPhone app. On the plus side, this means that there’s no new account to create and there’s nothing additional to manage—truly a great feature now that seemingly everything on the Internet requires a login and password. On the other hand, you have to be Facebook friends with anyone you want to track, they have to also be using the Mobcast service, and currently Mobcast is only available for iPhone and iPod Touch, although you can view friends locations through Facebook itself.
I do like that privacy can be controlled on a personal level—you select exactly who can see you and who can’t, and you can delete your location history at any time. It’s also extremely easy to go into stealth mode.
The Mobcast iPhone app itself is smart and easy to use. However, because Apple doesn’t currently allow programs to run in the background, to keep Mobcast up-to-date, you have to leave the iPhone app open, which can be a battery drain.
