GLOBAL – Where are you? Echoecho is the simple location sharing app for Nokia smartphone users that avoids fifty follow-ups to the world’s most-frequently texted question. You know, the texts that go like this:

“I’m at the sandwich shop.”
“Which one?”
“The small one near the station”
“Great, let’s have a snack?”
“I’ve just eaten”
“How about coffee?”
“Sure.”
“Let’s go to Starbucks?”
“Which Starbucks?”

Tap anyone in your address book and echoecho tells you where someone is right now, rather than where they were the last time they checked-in.

And unlike other location based apps, you’re in control of who sees your information at all times. So, you should never be like the New Yorker whose location based app is now the evidence against her in a bitter divorce.

Echoecho was developed for Nokia Symbian smartphones by a global team led from LA by Nick Bicanic and Andrew Wanliss-Orlebar. Read more about them from the Nokia Developer blog.

With transparent overlays on dynamically created maps, the application was developed using Qt notification (push notifications), Qt mobility (GPS, Wifi, Cell ID positioning) and advanced graphics (dynamic multiple layer alpha channels on maps). Bicanic notes that it allowed the team to develop for multiple devices without fuss: “With Qt, this was an amazing experience. We created the app using Nokia N8 devices during testing and initial development. When we tried running the software on any other Qt compatible phone, it just worked. No bugs. No recompiling.”

Have you tried out echoecho yet? How do you feel it stacks up against other location-based services?