iOS Find Me Friends

It’s been a while since I’ve talked about Find My Friends in this newsletter. Generally, I don’t get a lot of value out of Apple’s “Find My” product suite other than when I occasionally can’t find my phone and have to locate it. Other than that, I don’t need to see the location of friends 24/7, and I don’t need to be reminded every time I’m 30 feet away from my Airpods. It’s annoying.

Anyways… the last few weeks, Stompers has taken a lot of my attention. It’s a fun way to track your steps with friends, but more than that, it’s starting to feel like a social media application. You can see who’s walked throughout the day, and you can sabotage them a little bit with a bat or banana peel. After talking with some users, I’ve discovered some of them have connected with strangers through these daily competitions, and it sounds like the beginnings of a social network to me.

This got me thinking about the existing Find My Friends product, and how it might be used to promote the discovery of new friends rather than just tracking old ones. What if there was a “Find Me Friends” feature where you could opt in to finding people who want to be friends near you?

This would be a privacy and safety nightmare. It only takes one person to ruin a good thing, and I’d bet with almost 100% certainty that someone would on day one if this existed. However, it’d be an interesting social experiment if this did exist.

Have a friend who would use this? Don’t send them this newsletter. https://sorens.beehiiv.com/