The Story

Glympse is a location-sharing app that allows you to let others see your movements in real-time. The beauty of Glimpse, or should we say one of the beauties of Glympse, is that you can set an expiration period for tracking. So if you want others to see your movements over an hour but don’t want them to be able to follow you indefinitely, you can set Glympse to stop showing your location after that time.

The Experience

Glympse requires no sign-in to any service or social network. You just download the app and start posting your location via email. You can update via Facebook and Twitter, of course, but it’s not a prerequisite.

Glympse uses a custom veneer over Google Maps and Streetview to post your location and provides the recipient of your email, Tweet, or Facebook message with a link to follow you from their PC, smartphone, or other connected device.

And the web interface is slick, keeping you informed of your “Glympsee’s” progress, with time to destination and time to link expiry.

Some of you may be hearing shades of Google’s Latitude, but it’s Glympse’s focus on privacy that has won it fans in the Android community. If you’re running late for a meeting for example, you can send your colleagues a link to track you, rather than have them sat twiddling their thumbs in a meeting room. Once the meeting’s over, however, you can go on your way, safe in the knowledge that you haven’t given away your movements for the next five years to some casual acquaintances.

Glympse is one of those apps that you won’t use every day, but that’s so incredibly useful you’ll wish you had it on your side in tight spot. Very niche. But very useful.

The bottom line

Neat location-sharing app that’s a cut above Latitude in privacy terms

Additional Info

Version reviewed 1.26
Glympse