Are you forgetful? Always leaving stuff places? Well, a new location-based alarm application called Remember It for the iPhone will alert you when you have left a location so you can go back and collect your belongings.
The example that creator Fernando Pizarro likes to use is that of a credit card. Pizarro said he came up with the idea the morning after a night on the town where he left his credit card at a bar with an open tab. It struck him the next morning when he was trying to pay for his post-hangover coffee.
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“Prior to coming up with the idea, I had a few credit cards stolen. I had a card stolen and the thief went on a gold shopping spree in Dubai,” Pizarro said. “The idea is that there are a lot of use cases out there but this is the one that really resonates with people.”
The app is pretty simple and Pizarro said he has been working on it as a side project to his primary startup, (Cinecandy), since January. Basically, it looks like it creates a geo-fence of either 50, 200 or 500 feet from the location you set it and when you leave that area, your phone or tablet will alert you with a noise or song chosen from iTunes.
You do have to remember why you set the app as there is no field within it that allows you to put in notes attached to the alarm. It would be helpful to remember things if you programmed a note into the app that said as you were leaving the bar “did you remember your credit card?” For me, I would always have a note for when I am leaving my apartment that says “do you have your phone charger?”
Pizarro could make some improvements on the app, which is $.99 in the app store. Pizarro is using the proceeds from the app to fund his other startup, a social video creation app.
Pizarro may have built a lightweight app, but he’s a heavy hitter himself. According to his LinkedIn profile, he studied at the Cairo American College, learned Chinese in China, got a BA in East Asian Studies from Harvard, studied cuisine at Le Cordon Bleu, got an MBA in Finance from the University of Chicago, then worked in business development at News Corp, Disney, Discovery and Yahoo South East Asia. He was a co-founder of The Founder Institute, an organization dedicated to spreading tech entrepreneurism around the world.
There are other geofence reminder apps out there for iOS. Geofence from iApp Ventures allows you to set a radius with categories, notes and reminders in an area. The iHound Tracker, ostensibly for finding a lost or stolen phones, can set geofences parameters and show you updates with reminders.
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