Life360 vs Find My iPhone Review: Which is Better?

You have misplaced your phone, and you are worried you may have lost it or that someone stole it. You have called your phone, and you cannot hear it. After checking your car and the car park, you start to worry, but then you remember you have both Life360 and Find My iPhone apps on your phone.

So, the question is, which of them is the better? Is Life360 the app you prefer, or does the simplicity of Find My iPhone most appeal to you?

What Do They Do?

Find My iPhone and Life360 are similar only in that they help you to track your device. But, they are vastly different from one another in several ways.

To begin, Life360 is designed to help you keep up with friends and family. Find My iPhone is more often used to help you track a lost or stolen phone.

While both applications are valuable, it’s important to keep in mind that Find My iPhone is only available on iPhones, so we’ll be comparing the two in this article for our iOS users.

Find My iPhone

Find My iPhone is an app that allows you to find your misplaced iOS device, be it your iPod, iPhone, iPad, or Mac. It is free and easy to use.

Using Find My iPhone

The app usually comes preloaded on all iOS devices and uses your Apple ID and password for a secure login.

If you ever lose your device, you can use the iCloud website to track your device. The app allows you to protect your data by sending signals and instructions to your device.

What Makes Find My iPhone Special?

If your device is on, you can activate the GPS and locate it on a map. You may also lock the device, lock your device, play sounds, display a message, and even erase everything on your phone. You can post a message that gives a phone number for whoever finds your device to call.

With this app, you may put your device into “Lock Mode,” which automatically locks the device and displays a message and phone number for anybody who finds the phone. If your phone’s GPS was on at the time, it could give you a location history, which may help you discover what happened to your phone after you lost it.

The Downside of Find My iPhone

There are a few things about Find My iPhone we should mention.

First, if you want to track a friend or a family member, you will need to add them to Family Sharing or have their Apple ID and password to track them. This is one of the reasons that Life360 may be a better choice (it’s designed for keeping up with others).

Next, if you need to track your iOS device, you’ll need to sign in to iCloud. If you don’t have a secondary Apple device, or if you don’t have a browser saved with your login information, you won’t be able to access Find My iPhone remotely. In a time of need, this could be a serious problem.

Lastly, Find My iPhone can be a bit hit or miss on the actual location. There could be several reasons for this, but the service may not give you the exact address where your phone is.

Find My iPhone – Summary

Overall, Find My iPhone is geared toward recovering your lost or stolen device. If the phone doesn’t have an internet connection, unfortunately, you won’t be able to track it. But Find My iPhone does let you erase your device remotely further protecting any sensitive information that you have.

Just make sure you enable the iCloud setting on your device before you start using the app because the app uses this service to communicate with your device.

Life360

The Life360 app defines itself as a GPS and family locator. It aims to help you find your phone and find your family members too. It is a little more information-hungry, which some people may feel uncomfortable with.

However, Life360 also works on Android, which means you can locate both your iOS and Android devices with this app.

Using Life360

Life360 is a lot simpler to use than Apple’s Find My iPhone. All you need to do is download the application and sign in. You can add multiple friends and family members to the same circle or have several different circles.

You may set the device to let you know when people in your family circle, on the app, leave a physical location. The same is true if you are using the app to find your phone, though you would need access to a mobile device of someone in your family circle on the app.

Once you’re in a Circle you can tap on anyone’s avatar to get their phone’s location. Unlike Find My iPhone, you won’t need anyone else’s login credentials and you won’t have to share purchases or other OS-specific information.

What Makes Life360 Special?

You can view the real-time locations of your family members or your mobile device. You can make your location private, or you can let your entire family circle see where you are. The circles you create in the app need not be limited to your family members. You could have one for workmates, friends, and so forth.

Life360 uses GPS technology to find your phone. You can also call the Life360 support team if you would like assistance while using the app. For example, if you are having trouble locating your lost phone, give them a ring. Or, even if your car breaks down, you can call the Life360 team, and they can use your location to help you call for a tow truck.

Life360 has a ton of great features with both the paid and premium services:

• Crash Detection
• Location alerts – Set alerts for home, school, and work. When the user arrives, you’ll be notified.
• Battery life notifications
• Recent travel history (with speeds included)
• Helpful descriptions for when the user turns their location or phone off to avoid being tracked.

If you’re into monitoring the activities and whereabouts of others, Life360 is far superior to Find My iPhone.

The Downside of Life360

Just like Find My iPhone, there are some downsides to Life360. For one, if your device is lost or stolen, you have no control over what happens to your data. You’ll only see that it is, in fact, lost.

Life360 is easier to trick (not too easy) than Find My iPhone. Tech-savvy kids can easily trick Life360 into saying they’re somewhere else.

Life360 – Summary

Life360 is the perfect solution for keeping up with others, but it doesn’t offer much in the ways of protecting your data in the event your device is stolen.

It is pretty accurate and even gives you the physical address of the users’ location. You can also tap to get directions and go straight to the user.

Life360 vs Find My iPhone – the Verdict

The Find My iPhone app is geared toward locating missing iOS devices and has several outstanding security features. Life360 doesn’t have these features, but it does have social tools, and it works with both iOS and Android devices.

If you are looking to find and protect your device, then use the Find My iPhone app. If you would like to locate your phone and monitor your family members, then Life360 is for you. However, no rule says you cannot have both.

Frequently Asked Questions

Choosing the right location app is essential to our lifestyle these days. If you have more questions, we’ve included some more answers here:

Is Life360 free?

Life360 offers a free and paid service. The free service gives you basic tracking tools, the chat option, and the ability to save to locations for each circle.

The paid version includes crash detection where you’ll receive an alert if the user is in a wreck. This is a great solution for any circles with young drivers.

Is Find My iPhone free?

Absolutely! Apple will not charge you for the use of their GPS location service.

What options do Android users have?

If you’re using an Android, the good news is Life360 is cross-compatible so you can keep in touch with your iOS friends and family. But, you may need a way to wipe your phone or track it.

Fortunately, you can do that too! The Android Device Manager is very similar to Apple’s Find My iPhone. You can log into your account from another device and track or erase your phone.

If you’re using a Samsung device there’s a third option which is Find My Mobile. This will not only allow you to track and erase your device but you can also change the screen lock code too!

Which app would you choose and why? Let us know what you think in the comments section.