Whether you’re looking at this as a safety app for your sweetheart to keep tabs on you while you’re riding (because, you know, God forbid you seem stationary on the side of the road for too long) or he/she and your friends want to see where you are on course at a race, Glympse may be the coolest non-cycling app for cycling.
Glympse is an app for iPhones, Android and Windows Mobile that tracks your movements in real time for a specified period of time, letting others (whom you specify) know exactly where you are for as long as you want to let them know.
Theoretically, you could even mount your phone using the Bicio iphone handlebar mount (or Biologic’s or Best Buy’s) and track your friend while actually riding to see where you both are in relation to each other. Or, supposing you get too far ahead on the trail and don’t want your buddy to get lost, send them a Glympse so you don’t have to crawl back up the singletrack you just ripped down.
There are cycling-specific apps that track your position in real time (like this, this and this), but they may seem like Greek to non-cyclists and family members that just want to see where you are, and not all of them can be monitored on another smartphone. Additionally, Glympse seems to have more cross-platform compatibility.
Oh, and with the iPhone’s new iOS4, Glympse will run in the background so you can continue texting, facebooking and tweeting from your ride as you please.
