In 2019, Life360’s monthly active users (MAU) grew 47% to 27 million in 160 countries. Within a year, two million families were using the app. But by 2010, iPhones could run apps permanently in the background, and Life360 began to gain traction.
HOW TO BLOCK LIFE360 APP ANDROID
He realised that smartphones could do a better job of connecting families, and his concept won Google’s first 2007 Android Developer Challenge along with a $275,000 grant.Īt first, investors were wary: they saw Life360 as a niche concept and user numbers grew slowly. Hulls was inspired to launch Life360 after stumbling upon a somewhat clunky system the US government used to help people locate loved ones in a disaster.
“Our vision to to turn the phone into a safety device”īased in San Francisco, Life360 was founded in 2008 by Chris Hulls and Alex Haro. If you’re a start-up considering a location-based service or a freemium model, take note. But will there be a slingshot on the other side? In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, Life360’s model is especially relevant. Life360 says it has seen a decrease in new registrations as a result of coronavirus lockdowns. One Reddit user describes Life360 in three words: “Creepy, stalkerish, boundaries.” According to Wired, videos tagged #Life360 have been viewed over 13 million times on TikTok, and recently, Life360 was spammed with a flurry of one-star reviews by teenage influencers. Instead of feeling ‘free, together’ as the tagline promises, teens feel spied upon. Needless to say, parents love Life360 but lots of teenagers loathe it. Teenagers also live on their phones, so using apps to protect them makes sense. They may forget to tell their parents where they’re going or when plans change. It solves an age-old problem: kids aren’t always the best communicators. Life360 has grown at a phenomenal rate over the past decade. For many people, this rings alarm bells: is it okay for companies ( and governments) to collect our data and impinge on our privacy? On the other hand, teens are potentially a big transmitter of the virus given how social they are, perhaps justifying the need to track them, while making technology like Life360 acceptable. Suddenly, apps are being used to monitor and track people in the interests of public health on an unprecedented scale. Location-sharing apps are especially relevant in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. Life360 is an app that brings family members into a virtual ‘circle’ using location sharing to reveal each other’s whereabouts.
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