The oblivious nature of our ambiance calls for monitoring in one way or another. If your kid is getting a new smartphone to keep them parallel with the digital race, it’s also making them vulnerable to potentially harmful content. People they text, calls they make or the sites they visit are just a few of the many concerns that parents should have, once their kid gets their first internet ready handset.
If your kids’ cell phone habits are giving you the blues or your employees are showing a declining productivity, smartphone monitoring is a viable solution. It’s like prognostication, where you can mediate the escalation of unfavorable incidents that can harm your child by keeping tabs on their activities. You can track incoming, outgoing calls, SMS, IM chats or track the target device with either one of these top 4 mobile phone monitoring apps. These apps are benchmarked against features, compatibility, price and performance.
#1. FlexiSpy
This is one of the oldest apps in the market which claims to provide more than 150 smartphone monitoring features. FlexiSpy can be considered the best monitoring app to spy on IMs. It can track different IM apps like WhatsApp, Facebook, Viber, Line, Skype, WeChat, iMessage, BBM, Yahoo messenger, Snapchat and Hangouts. The app without any doubts is a powerful one and does scrutinize many dimensions of smartphone monitoring.
Other standout features are FaceTime spy cam with which you can initiate a FaceTime session discreetly without alerting the target user. You can also send live images back to the FlexiSpy server. However, it’s only available for iPad. Another feature is the app’s ability to control the camera of a smartphone, so that you can take photos without even giving any hint to the target user.
However, it does have pricy subscription plans. The app is available in premium version at $149 for a year* and $349 for the extreme edition*. The device is compatible with Android, BlackBerry, iPhone and Symbian devices.
#2. XNSPY
XNSPY has made its name very quickly into the smartphone monitoring market through its powerful, super-fast and efficient interface. What’s unique to this app is its performance and features at the most reasonable rates, allowing consumers from every income bracket to monitor their kids and employees.
The app has moderately followed the footsteps of its precedents like FlexiSpy but providing a USP in the form of impressive features, minimalistic control panel and a 24/7 customer support. Its unique features are Geo-fencing, call interception and Watchlist.
With Geo-fencing, you can mediate your kids and employees movement in certain places. All you have to do is open the map on XNSPY’s control panel and mark ‘Authorized’ and ‘Unauthorized’ areas. With the Watchlist feature, you can add places, contacts, names and words into the target list. Whenever they are used by the target user, you will be informed immediately on the control panel.
You also get to track all the famous IM apps like Facebook, WhatsApp, Line, Viber, Skype and iMessage. There are other powerful features like remote control, allowing you to lock the target device from the control pane. You can also wipe data over the target device or send certain commands onto it.
The app is currently available for Android and iPhone devices and soon they are expected to enter other mobile phone platforms too. It’s available in two editions; basic and premium. A year’s subscription for basic will cost you $99.99* or you can get the premium one at $149.99.*
#3. M-SPY
This app focuses more on parental monitoring. It’s simple but subtle. The software provides all the basic smartphone monitoring features like tracking calls, text messages, internet history, GPS location, calendar entries and instant messaging apps. You can view chats from Skype, WhatsApp, and iMessage, Viber, Snapchat and Line. What’s a bit disappointing is that it doesn’t track Facebook messages. Also, you can view multimedia files on these apps. There is also a remote control function that can lock the device from M-Spy’s control panel. The good thing is that it’s available for Windows Phones apart from Android and iOS.
M-Spy’s pricing is also very decent. 3 month’s basic packages is available at $59.99* and 12 month’s Premium is available in $199.99.*
#4. Mobile SPY
Mobile Spy is known for its user-friendly interface and cheap package plans. The app offers many basic features like allowing you to remotely view logs of calls, text messages, IM apps, internet browser history. What’s different for this app is that it allows you to track the YouTube app because there so many crazy videos these days on YouTube. You can also view the target mobile phone’s screen which is pretty amazing! GPS tracking allows you to track the location of the target device. This app also offer Geo-fencing, preventing the target device to travel beyond a certain location.
What you will find unique to this app is that it can allow you to track messenger services like Yahoo, BBM, GTalk, Windows Live and AOL.
The app is compatible with iOS, Android and BlackBerry. If you are a BB user then this app is pretty useful. However, there are many drawbacks of this app. The major flaw is its lack of compatibility with iOS 6.1.3 or higher and BB OS.10. If you are buying the app to track Line, Viber and Skype, then you are in the wrong place, as it only tracks Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp.
The basic version of this app is available at $99.97* for a full year’s subscription and the premium one is offered at $139.97.*
Final Verdict
All the 4 aforementioned apps have their own unique selling points but if you are looking for massive features, you can go for FlexiSpy but it’s also the most expensive one too. XNSPY, on the other hand offers amazing features and affordable packages. It is effective, efficient and a powerful software that is highly suitable for your parental and Employee monitoring. If you are BlackBerry user and want BBM tracking without paying much, then Mobile Spy is a good option.
* Prices correct at time of publication
Images: Authors own
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