BlackBerryInsight

Some time ago Skylab Mobilesystems Ltd. released a pretty nifty app for the BlackBerry® PlayBook™: Live Tracker Monitor. The application allows you to track BlackBerry® Smartphones anywhere in the world with your PlayBook™. How you wonder? Simple; to make the app work, you need two apps:

• Live Tracker Client for BlackBerry® Smartphone.
• Live Tracker Monitor (Free, Lite or Enterprise version) for the BlackBerry® PlayBook™.

After installing both apps, you switch on the Live Tracker Client app on your phone. As soon as the app has a GPS fix, you’ll be able track your phone with the Live Tracker Monitor app on your PlayBook™. Run the application, click the “add tracker button (the little human icon with a “+”), add the Tracker ID or PIN of your phone and give it a name. Your phone’s location should now show up on the map.

As just mentioned, I’m pretty blown away by this app. The look and feel is great and it actually really works as advertised! To make the app work, it is essential to install and run the Client app on your BlackBerry® Smartphone. Without that you won’t be able to track your phone. Instead it will show up just of the coast of Africa (coordinates being all 0). The double app construction also prevents you from tracking just anyone. So for the stalkers amongst us, this won’t allow you to secretly track the whereabouts of any person.

So you’ll wonder, to what purpose? Over the weekend I tracked a friend who went on a fishing trip for the sake of trying the app. In a real situation, this app allows you to see where you kids hang out for example, or where your employees are (really ill in bed or in the cinema?). The three versions of the app cater to different scenarios. The free version allows you to track up to two devices and is ideal for people like me, I’m quite sure next time I go on a weekend hike with some friends my girlfriend want to track me. The Lite version costs $2.99 per month and allows you to track up to 10 devices. Ideal for family use or a small company. Personally I’d recommend our local pizzeria to get one as it takes their couriers forever to deliver. The Enterprise version costs $49.99 per month and allows you to track up to a 1000 devices and is typically meant for large companies with employees on the road. The Lite as well as the Enterprise version are very well priced, in effect you get for under a 50 bucks a month a complete fleet monitoring system!

Skylab Mobilesystems Ltd. did an amazing job with Live Tracker Monitor. Even just for fun this app is great, I can see how a kids’ game like hide and seek gets a whole new dimension with this app. Live Tracker Monitor is compatible with BlackBerry® PlayBook™ running OS 2.0 and up.

Live Tracker Monitor Free: http://appworld.blackberry.com/webstore/content/62136/

Live Tracker Monitor Lite: http://appworld.blackberry.com/webstore/content/62134/

Live Tracker Monitor Enterprise:  http://appworld.blackberry.com/webstore/content/59430/

Live Tracker Client for BlackBerry Smartphone: http://appworld.blackberry.com/webstore/content/2899/