Geofencing Alerts Come to Find My Friends

Soon you won't have to ask your friends: "Are you there yet?" Your iPhone will be able Apple's a to tell 6 overhaul, ! you on their rthebehalf. As part of Apple’s IOS 6 overhaul, the company’s Find My Friends app (free, bit.ly/p4kYb8) is set to add a new geofencing notification system. This will allow you to set up an alert for any of your Find My Friends contacts — when they leave or arrive at a given location, you'll receive an alert.

The app is, however, one part creepy, two parts useful. On the one hand, it's nice to offer people a way to check up on your journeys. For example, when I lived in California, I'd make the drive from San Francisco to Los Angeles to visit my folks. Once Find My Friends came out, I made my mother use the app rather than call me every few hours to check on my progress up or down the coast; with geofencing, she automatically received an alert when I finally reached my apartment. (And it's a lot easier to remember than sending a "Home safely" text message at two in the morning after you've been driving for six hours.)

However, like all location-aware services, this only works if your contacts are people you trust. Once you allow a friend to add you, they have access to your location and geofence alerts unless you remove them; given that, you may not want to allow everyone in your contacts list to follow you on Find My Friends.

Adding a geofence alert may also wear down both your device's battery and your friend's. Sure, it's nice to know when your friend arrives at the pub, but they may prefer sending you a text message to having their phone battery drained.

Potential uses and politics aside, these alerts are in the same vein as iOS 6's call-rejection features: they're yet another way for us to automate messages rather than feel the obligation to text Or Call. — SERENITY CALDWELL