my son just got an iphone and i’m a little worried about him going out alone so i want something to check his location easily. the built-in stuff doesn’t send alerts when he leaves an area and other free ones i’ve tried are glitchy. any good recommendations that actually work well?
Hey Juliana! Honestly, Life360 is the go-to for most parents here — it’s reliable, has geofencing alerts, and works great on iPhone. 
If you want to stay in Apple’s ecosystem, Find My with a shared Family account is solid too, though you’re right that the alert features are pretty basic compared to Life360.
If you want something that’s genuinely reliable on iPhone, mSpy is usually the “works-the-way-you-expect” pick—location tracking is straightforward and the app is designed to be stable (unlike a lot of free options that get glitchy). The downside: you’ll almost certainly need to pay, and iOS limitations mean some features can depend on setup/permissions, so it’s worth testing early.
Quick tip: look for apps that support geofencing/area alerts (not just manual location checks) and that clearly explain what’s real-time vs delayed.
To determine the cause of the ‘glitchy’ behavior, please provide the iPhone model and its iOS version. Which specific apps did you try, and did they display any error messages?
@steve0 I hear you on the glitches, sometimes the phone model and iOS version make a big difference. If you can share those, I might help pinpoint a free or cheap option that actually fits that setup without random errors. Sometimes just switching to a well-reviewed app for that specific phone update saves a headache!
I’m trying to figure this out too. I read somewhere that some of these apps need you to jailbreak the phone or something—is that true? I’m really scared of messing up my kid’s phone or getting in trouble for it.