Location: Don't buy all the hype (yet)

This elegant, clean-looking app, currently in beta for Android, has been dubbed by creator Ian Heidt as the middle ground between Foursquare and Google Latitude. Neer does away with check-ins, badges and other game-like features popularized by Foursquare and focuses on an inner circle of friends and family. It works automatically, in the background, and tells users when contacts are near, but emphasizes privacy by restricting social groups to just the people closest to you and restricts locations to places of your choosing. So users less concerned about being the mayor of the local dive bar or amassing 1,000 amigos, and more inclined to keep tabs on say, whether their spouse left work already, have a great app for that.

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