Tracking person online with GPS cellphones

Do you want to know about services that track where someone is, i.e. you want to see where your kids are, or are you wondering how cell phone based GPS is to find directions?

I haven't used the former, I've used Telenav on my cell phone, and plan to write a review compared to Garmin when I have some time.

When I had Nextel, I used all three of these.

Instamapper worked the best for remote tracking, and the features on the website are excellent. Be aware that this app is only for tracking; it doesn't show you maps on the phone at all. That being said, it does its primary job quite well instead of failing to do a lot of things. The J2ME version is probably Nextel/Boost-specific (well, Motorola location API specific) since to install on my i355, it couldn't even contain the standard JSR-179 location API, or the phone would have refused to install it. They also have versions for iPhone and Android. If they come out with a more generic J2ME app, I'll try that since I use a Samsung phone (with JSR-179) on Sprint now.

First, though, I tried Mologogo. It works, sometimes (when the server is running), but it's soooo slow, and seems to refresh the map every time it sends a position update. Also, it seems like GPS and network operations are all done in a single loop, so if one hangs, everything else is delayed. The Jabber integration was nice when it worked, but it doesn't anymore. No new versions in a long time, either.

I also tried MGMaps. The author produced a special version that only used the Motorola location API so it would theoretically run on Nextel phones. It finally installed, but kept crashing. I finally figured out that the phones (i580 and i355) couldn't handle transparent PNGs. It was such a niche market that the author hasn't done any more for those phones. Now, though, I'm using a Samsung Rant with Sprint, and by enabling developer root and installing the Sprint-specific build, it works pretty well, especially for tracking. Also, whatever location API it's using (probably Sprint-specific for this build) seems to fall back to cell tower position estimation when GPS is unavailable, and it gets at least an approximate location very quickly.

Can user use the phone making calls or receive calls while the tracking is in action? Does the voice call block the tracking?

Check out this thread:

http://www.poi-factory.com/node/18728

if you have windows mobile you can use Sprite Terminator to track your phone. If the program is installed you can send it SMS msgs which are invisible to the phone user. It'll reply with a a webpage (google maps) showing the location.

I've tried both Instamapper and Mologogo. Mologogo is a mess...LOTS of reboots. Instamapper was nice and stable. But there is another free system that I like better:
http://mytrackingonline.com

It has the stablility of Instamapper with more features like geofences with SMS alerts, track multiple units on one map, and more map choices including some nice PDA map pages so you can track your phone using another phone.

You may want to look at Google Latitude at http://www.google.com/latitude/intro.html .The web page has a video on how it works.

Looks good! Thanks!

Works Great

Tried many times, I can't get it work with my Black Berry. It does not take my phone number nor email address. Appreciate anyone sharing success story?

Take a look at free and open source Traccar Client app (available for both Android and iOS):
https://www.traccar.org/client/

A few years back, my daughter tracked my trip from Kansas to California using the Find My Friends app on the iphone. It works as she was asking where we were and she saw that we were driving thru the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah. No problems with calling on phone while using tracking