Useful app for Android users
I know most people guard their smartphones with their lives, but just in case any of you should happen to lose your smartphone in the future, you should download the “Plan B” app by Lookout Mobile Security. This app is rather unfortunately named (I immediately associate the name with emergency contraception), but it’s super useful because it can pinpoint the location of your phone via Google Maps. Here are the instructions (yanked from the Lookout Mobile Security blog):
1) Go to the Android Market website and search “Plan B,” or visit the Plan B Android Market page.
2) Install Plan B to the phone that you are trying to find. (It’s important to note that you need to download Plan B from the web version of the Android Market, not the Android Market app market on your phone.) As soon as it is installed, Plan B will send an email to your Gmail account telling you it’s locating your phone.
3) Once Plan B has located your phone, check your Gmail again to find a link to a Google Map of where your phone is located. For 10 minutes Plan B will send you a series of consecutive emails with refined location updates every few minutes.
4) If your phone seems to be on the move, and you aren’t able to find your phone within ten minutes of downloading Plan B, you can text yourself the word “locate” from a friend’s phone in order to start the locate process again.
If you need any convincing that this is a worthwhile (free) app, check out this story by a guy who managed to find the phone he lost in San Diego from his home in Montana. http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2011/08/how-plan-b-found-the-droid-i-was-looking-for.ars
And here’s a link to the Lookout Mobile Security blog and its post on “Plan B” : http://blog.mylookout.com/2011/02/planb/
16 Aug 2011, 12:45 am
Never heard of this “Plan B” by lookout, but it seems to be exactly the same as the lookout software itself, which lets you go to mylookout.com to track your phone. Pretty nifty.
16 Aug 2011, 1:22 am
That seriously Made me laugh out loud… oh god so many high school memories…
More on topic however… Seems like a nice app I’ll check it out. Amazing that it’s free too.
16 Aug 2011, 7:04 am
More tracking sofrware completely useless tracking software. Im good i don’t wanna be tracked
16 Aug 2011, 9:44 am
True about the tracking… “they” want to track everything we do so they can enslave and shove shitty products down our throats.
However, it is cool that this can be used even if it is not installed on your device.
16 Aug 2011, 10:18 am
Yup. Very useless. So useless that you can find your phone if you lost it.
Me personally dont really give a crap who knows where I am, what do I have to hide?
16 Aug 2011, 10:27 am
Agreed. I don’t like the people who can’t even put their phone number out on facebook in fear of getting buttraped in the future (Seriously, a friend of mine believes someone might use his phone number to screw him over.)
16 Aug 2011, 1:42 pm
lol thats me, i dont even use my real name on facebook, I dont have anything to hide…but if I ever did google search on my name brings up nothin, not even spokeo has my info
16 Aug 2011, 1:44 pm
app looks nifty, damn i could use a more up to date phone
17 Aug 2011, 4:08 pm
“Waves hand” This isn’t the droid you’re looking for. What? Plan B?
17 Aug 2011, 7:11 pm
couldnt I just text “locate” to anyones droid and track them??? creepy….but possible right?
20 Aug 2011, 8:40 am
Cut the rope still amuses me. =)