#Net nanny app android#
#Net nanny app software#

In AppCertain’s review of an application, it looks both at objective facts about how the app functions (e.g., does it acces the camera or GPS? does it upload your iPhone contacts to its servers?), as well as subjective information. “The initial idea was how can we bring that technology to mobile devices?,” he says, “because that’s where we see a lot of opportunity in the future.”

#Net nanny app software#

Whitman’s background is in computer security, and he previously worked at CMU’s CyLab with technology that runs a binary analysis on software programs in order to determine what that program – like Firefox or Word – does. And in AppCertain’s case, it’s about knowing what the apps on a particular device can actually do. In TestFlight’s case, that’s providing a platform for accessing and installing apps which have not made their way into the public App Store yet. Apple put this functionality in place so enterprise customers could better manage the mobile apps and devices on their network, but as TestFlight shows, the feature allows for other types of activities as well.

#Net nanny app android#

He adds that iOS is the more difficult platform to build on, so if they can be successful here, it will be no problem to port it to Android later on.ĪppCertain works a bit like TestFlight, the beta application testing service, in that it also takes advantage of iOS’s ability to load “security certificates” onto the device.

“The reason we started with parental help is there’s a big need for it, but also it gives us an opportunity to focus on one platform, to really understand what the applications are doing on there,” says Whitman. Parents tell themselves they’ll keep track by taking the device from time to time and looking through all the apps, but often, that doesn’t end up happening because people are just too busy. It’s also things like violence and gore, language, drugs and alcohol references, adult themes, whether or not the app allows kids and adults to communicate with each other, whether apps are accessing data or services on the phone that go beyond what they need to function, whether apps allow for private communication which parents don’t know about, and much more.Įxplains AppCertain CEO Spencer Whitman, parents – even tech-savvy parents in some cases – have a hard time keeping up with all the new applications their kids are downloading, installing and using. It’s a “net nanny” for the mobile age, where it’s no longer just about kids coming across inappropriate content on the web – it’s about protecting children from the inappropriate content found in apps, too.Īlthough former Apple CEO Steve Jobs took a hard stance on keeping the company’s devices kid-friendly ( he famously once said that Apple had “a moral responsibility to keep porn off the iPhone,” for example), the rise of social networking applications – like, most recently, Twitter’s Vine app – has made keeping that promise much more difficult.Īnd it’s not just pornography that parents are worried about. AppCertain is the first studio company that Birchmere has publicly announced, partner Sean Ammirati tells us.īased in Pittsburgh, and staffed by a number of Carnegie Mellon University alumni, AppCertain aims to help busy parents keep track of the activities associated with the applications their children are using. The project is being incubated out of Birchmere Labs, the seed and studio fund within early stage VC firm Birchmere Ventures, which now both invests in startups directly and incubates select companies in a similar fashion to the betaworks model. Designed for parents whose children use an iOS device like the iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad, this new app-monitoring service sends out email alerts informing parents of the apps their kids have just installed, what those apps do, and whether or not they’re appropriate for children. It’s rare to come across a service that’s directly tackling a problem affecting a large number of people out in the real world, but AppCertain is doing just that.