This is kinda sweet for me. One of the features on Helio is the buddy beacon. Its a service that uses the GPS receiver in the phone to push your location onto your friends' maps. Kinda a neat idea, but the big downside is that your friends have to have Helios to use the service. And since I can't convince any of you chumps to throw down, my map only has a marker for where I am making it sad and not very useful.
On to the sweet part. Helio sold the Buddy Beacon trademark to a company called uLocate a while ago, and they've just released a 2.0 version of the software. There are various changes but most importantly users of other services can use Buddy beacon on their phones too! Right now the site lists: Alltel, Helio, metroPCS, Sprint, and iPhone. On some phones this just involves pointing to a web page instead of installing the new app like on my phone. Which is why I assume they list iPhone as supported, but not At&t. You just need a good enough web browser to run the mobile page.
On the downside the buddy location symbols seem to be MIA in favor of a buddy circle. So you'll know which block your bud is on, not what part of the bar. I assume this is because most devices (*cough* iPhone) can't locate themselves that accurately and rather than list specious information, they just generalize it all. I think I'd like the option to display my little Helio icon on the map like I used to, and other people would have big ass circles. But maybe they're trying to keep everyone from knowing what kinda cocked-up device other people rock.
Obfustication aside, this is an exciting update that makes this service actually useful. Oh, and there's a Facebook app you can add too that I haven't checked out. But I assume it'll let you find friends that also have the service.
On to the sweet part. Helio sold the Buddy Beacon trademark to a company called uLocate a while ago, and they've just released a 2.0 version of the software. There are various changes but most importantly users of other services can use Buddy beacon on their phones too! Right now the site lists: Alltel, Helio, metroPCS, Sprint, and iPhone. On some phones this just involves pointing to a web page instead of installing the new app like on my phone. Which is why I assume they list iPhone as supported, but not At&t. You just need a good enough web browser to run the mobile page.
On the downside the buddy location symbols seem to be MIA in favor of a buddy circle. So you'll know which block your bud is on, not what part of the bar. I assume this is because most devices (*cough* iPhone) can't locate themselves that accurately and rather than list specious information, they just generalize it all. I think I'd like the option to display my little Helio icon on the map like I used to, and other people would have big ass circles. But maybe they're trying to keep everyone from knowing what kinda cocked-up device other people rock.
Obfustication aside, this is an exciting update that makes this service actually useful. Oh, and there's a Facebook app you can add too that I haven't checked out. But I assume it'll let you find friends that also have the service.
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