AT&T FamilyMap lets you track your family

Family tracking app for iPhone ports desktop version, gives parents increased vision of children

To antsy parents everywhere: your day has come.

AT&T today announced the availability of a new app for the iPhone called FamilyMap, which allows users to track their family members' location on the smartphone. For $9.99/month you can track up to two phones and for $14.99/month you can track up to five phones. The tracked phones don't even need to be iPhones or other GPS-enabled devices; this service will track most AT&T phones, even if it just uses data from the nearest cellphone tower.

Basically, the app displays a map with an estimation within some small radius of the location of the family member you're searching for. This interactive map displays landmarks like schools and parks and can be switched between satellite mode and interactive street mode.

These features had previously been available only through a desktop version of FamilyMap.

The iPhone version also comes packaged with a bunch of features like Schedule Checks, which appears to be nothing more than a glorified calendar system, and My Places, which allows users to input key locations into the app for remembering later.

Naturally, tracked phones must be on the same billing account as the phone doing the tracking.

AT&T has provided this service since spring 2009 as a means of providing parents with "peace of mind," and the latest port to the iPhone means that they haven't lost interest in this new high-tech form of parenting.