Glympse (www.glympse.com) is probably one of the most useful services when making a car trip. The free service allows you to share your journey with friends or family so that they can track you in real time. For instance, imagine you're meeting up with a friend in the city. You can give them a Glympse along with your ETA, allowing your compadre to see where you are (and perhaps preventing an unnecessary call when you're running late).
Gympse originally arrived on Windows Phone back in 2011 and before that it was even on Windows Mobile 6. The app had a handful of updates jumping from 1.0 to 2.0 in five months, but after November 2011, the well went dry. The deserting was particularly painful because it wasn't until Windows Phone 8 and the background GPS tasks that Glympse had the potential to be fully unleashed. On Windows Phone 7, the Glympse app had to stay in the forefront, losing the signal if tombstoned.
However, June 17, 2014 is the day Glympse finally returned to Windows Phone.
From the new app description:
"Glympse is proud to announce a brand new update to our app for Windows Phone 8 users! With this release, we've brought you some great features to take advantage of the things Windows Phone 8.0 allows, such as:"
- Background operation - Glympse will now be able to run in the background. This enables users to share their location continually, for the amount of time set, while using other applications and without having to update settings to allow permission for Glympse to run while the screen is off.
- International phone number support - Glympse now leverages the default messaging app on the device to allow users to share their location with any phone number supported by their carrier.
- Easier view-in-app capability - Viewers can now easily launch and view a Glympse in the app from a link received in a text message or email through the "View in App" button in the Glympse web-viewer.
The app still works for Windows Phone 7.x users as well, but if you're on Windows Phone 8, you'll see the most benefits with the new background process.
The app feels fast and fluid, and I like the new UI design, which is vibrant and bold. Glympse is simple to setup, not requiring an account. A user simply creates a profile with their name and optional photo, and they then can send the Glympse to anyone in their contacts via email or a phone number. From the invite, the recipient gets a personal URL in which they can follow your trip in real-time on their phone or PC (it's a webpage based system).
I've always found Glympse to be a fascinatingly useful app, but I was quite upset to see them abandon Windows Phone. Now, the company is embracing the new Microsoft, and I couldn't be happier. So do me a favor, give the app a shot, leave a review and welcome Glympse back to Windows Phone.
Thanks, richard_rsp, for the tip!
