The app was originally designed to help Boingo subscribers find connectivity at the company’s more than 350,000 hotspots around the world, but now is useful for non-subscribers as well. Using the app, you can see all nearby hotspots — both on or off of Boingo’s network — get directions to them, see the SSID, or network name, search for networks in other locations and more. The app can also be configured to notify when a network is nearby, and on all devices except those running iOS, can automatically log you in.
Wi-Finder won’t show private hotspots, so don’t expect to see your home Wi-Fi network or that of your neighbors. Boingo says it’s only showing other commercial hotspots in the app, but the software supports crowdsourced network information: successful connections to open hotspots are logged and sent back to Boingo for inclusion in the directory database.
There are plenty of other apps to find free Wi-Fi: JiWire’s is one I’ve recommended in the past, both for Android and iOS. But I pay for Boingo’s $9.95 monthly plan as a backup plan to my 3G devices, so I’ll likely keep Wi-Finder installed as it now supports other free Wi-Fi networks. At the moment, the app requires connectivity for search results, but Boingo expects to improve Wi-Finder to include offline storage of the wireless network database.
Related content from GigaOM Pro (subscription req’d):
"
No comments:
Post a Comment