Nokia N96 App Review – Phone Locator

Name:  Phone Locator v0.70

Description:  Tracks your phones location and trail using GPS

Summary:  Since my wife’s N96 was stolen on Boxing day, I’ve been on the lookout for ways to trace handsets. Phone locator does just that. It’s an interesting application that was originally made to track the designer’s motorcycle tour around the Alps in 2007. Phone Locator uses your devices GPS to detect its location and uploads the information to the website where you can log in to view it. It also records the trail of the phone and the times the updates were received.

There are plenty of settings on this application that revolve around how the updates are to be sent. Some settings have an impact on battery life because the GPS is always active, but there are options to overcome this:

  

 • Turn on ‘battery saver’! ‘battery saver’ turns off the GPS when the phone is stationary or the GPS signal is too low to get a fix. The GPS is turned back on when the phone connects to a different cell tower. This works best in metropolitan areas where the cells are small.

• Update less frequently! A big drain on the battery is the data context that is used to send data to the server. For example, if the application is set to ‘update every time I move’ it will drain the battery quicker than if it is set to update every 30 minutes.

 

After installation you are directed to the website where you can register your account. You can then log into the website on your pc and see where your phone is currently and where it has been at earlier times. You can choose to be ‘public’ where your location and trails are viewable to others or you can be ‘private’, and your location is only viewable when logged into your account.

Phone locator can be set to run at boot time so you can just forget about it. If you lose your phone, or it is stolen, you are then able to view its location providing a gps signal is or was available. It also runs in the background and doesn’t show up in running applications when closed.

You can also add other phones to your account that have the application installed to view family and friends locations and trails if you so wished.

I hope I never have to use this to try and trace a lost or stolen phone but I have it running just in case!

Please remember that data sent will incur charges to your phone bill unless you have an unlimited data plan with your provider.

Forum Discussion: Applications – Phone Locator

Rating:  9/10

Download: Phone Locator

Enjoy!