Loopt and AT&T to Bring Always-On Location Tracking for a Monthly Fee of $3.99

Sunday, September 6, 2009

It seems that AT&T is always trying to squeeze more monthly fees from iPhone users. Now, together with Loopt, AT&T will enable iPhone users to share their location at all times even when the Loopt app is not turned on. Like the subscription based AT&T Navigator, turning on this location awareness feature will set you back $3.99 per month.

An always on location awareness feature is a frequent request from Loopt users. However, due to Apple’s restriction with third party apps running in the background, Loopt have to go directly to AT&T to successfully launch this feature. This feature works by server to server communication between AT&T and Loopt. This will bypass GPS data collection through the Loopt app. Instead, AT&T will use cell tower triangulation to approximate the users location. Thus, the always-on location awareness feature will not be as accurate as location data collected from GPS. Furthermore, the location data is only updated once every 1 to 2 hours.

Loopt is currently offering a 14-day free trial for its first 5000 subscribers. After that, the monthly fees will automatically be applied unless it is cancelled. Also, only iPhone users with a text messaging plan will be elegible for this free trial. So, if you are interested to have someone track your location at all times, why not give it a try?