One of the biggest hits this past fall wasn't a movie, television show, or book—it was an unassuming podcast called Serial, which centered around an unsolved murder from 1999 of a high school student in Maryland.
Adnan, the accused murderer, says he had nothing to do with the murder, and continues to plead his innocence to this day. Unfortunately for him, there are a couple of hours that are completely unaccounted for in his life, and they happen to be the exact time that the murder occurred.
If he didn't commit the murder, where was he? Was he at home? Was he at a friend's house? Was he somewhere else? With the technology we have today, this whole case would be a lot easier to close, thanks to cameras and smartphones.
Inspired by Serial, the developers over at Frublin have created an iOS app called Alibi, which verifies all of the locations you visit with Touch ID. That way, your alibi is accounted for at all times of the day.
After arriving at a destination, Alibi will prompt you to open the app on your iPhone to verify the visit by using Touch ID. Press your fingerprint against the Home button and your location will be verified, indicated by a green "Solid Alibi" banner underneath your location.
Through the timeline, you can view all of your visited locations, the amount of time you spent there, and the time you spent getting from one place to the next. Alibi doesn't record your location while you're on the move, only after you're stationary for a bit.
In the map itself, you can view location markers of everywhere you've been. Tap on a location to view the time you spent there and whether or not it was verified. You can also add a name to the location, so that it shows up in your timeline in the future.
Access a list of places, neighborhoods, cities, states, and countries you've visited through the three-dash menu at the bottom left. From there you can also purchase the pro version of Alibi for $0.99, which allows you to look back at your locations more than 2 weeks old.
While the app works pretty well, there are a few bugs, mostly with the location sometimes being a little off (less than 100 yards) and the app occasionally freezing after using Touch ID.
Also, it should be noted that Alibi shouldn't be your number one line of defense in case you really need to account for your location in a court of law. The verification of your location can be falsified, as long as someone has fingerprint access to your phone.
You could also use Apple's built-in Frequent Locations to help identify where you're at, but again, if someone else has your iPhone, the results may be inadmissible. A better option: take a selfie and make sure that Location Services is on for your Camera app.
Alibi, while useful, is more of an interesting way to keep track of the places you visit throughout your week. I don't remember all the places I visited last Tuesday, but thanks to Alibi, I now do.
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