All Articles Tagged loopt

Loopt and AT&T Work Out $3.99/month “Always On” Location Updates Deal for iPhone

loopt

Loopt [Free - iTunes link], which matches social networks with location-based services into one smoldering hot Web 2.0 sammich, has struck a deal with AT&T that will let them update their iPhone users’ location information even when the Loopt app proper isn’t running.

Yes, you read that correctly — the Loopt iPhone app isn’t being granted any extra special background multi-tasking sanction by Apple for the iPhone, this is strictly a server-to-server, Loopt-to-AT&T deal, and it will come at a price. BusinessInsider scores the scoop:

Loopt will first offer the new always-on service in a trial for 5,000 users. You can sign up at Loopt’s site using your iPhone’s MobileSafari browser. After the 14-day trial, the always-on feature will cost $3.99 per month, added to your AT&T bill.

BusinessInsider also renews that old rumor about how Apple is seriously considering limited multi-tasking in a future software update. And, yes, they’ll have to have something interesting to tempt users with in iPhone 4.0/4G next summer, so why not run with that? We’d like it!

But back to Loopt, anyone dying to give AT&T an extra $4 a month for precise stalking tracking of their friends and family?

[Via Daring Fireball]



Not Available in YOUR App Store?

I watched the recent Apple iPhone commercial, the one featuring Loopt that promised to keep me in stronger, better, faster contact with all my similarly teched-out friends, and immediately fired my iPhone to download it.

But guess what? It didn’t show up in the App Store. Dieter was kind enough to send me a direct link, so I clicked on that, and know what happened? I got a pop-up telling me Loopt wasn’t available in the Canadian App Store.

So, either we Canucks have no friends to stay in contact with, Loopt has yet to expand their offering to our frozen shores, or Apple didn’t bother to make a commercial with wider appeal than AT&T’s network coverage (or all of the above?)

In a global village, is it odd that an App isn’t just an App, and often medieval licensing rights prevent real parity in services?

For our international readers, any other Apps you’ve been unable to get due simply to where you live? Any Americans ever come across an App you couldn’t get?

New iPhone Commerical: Loopt

Saw this online last night, and you have to give Apple’s advertising gurus credit: they know how to show off the App Store. Never once do they get bogged down in the tech-talk quagmire of Social Network or Location Based services, nor do they trade comical barbs like their Mac Switcher ads.

iPhone ads show cool things being done easily. Case in point, the latest spot featuring Loopt.

Stay in touch with your friends. That’s the iPhone. Done.

Maybe that’s why the iPhone ranks #1 in satisfaction?

Check out the add via Apple.com