Ensuring your family is safe is one of the many hats a parent gets to wear. The advent of technology has brought with it unique risks to children that most parents didn't face growing up. Fortunately, the same technology can offer powerful tools to help you stay vigilant and always connected to your family.

Nowadays, you can use an iPhone or Android spy app to ensure your family's safety. These apps offer benefits such as emergency alerts, location tracking, and more features to help keep your loved ones safe. Let's take a deep dive into our editor's top picks for the best apps in this category.

uMobix

uMobix is the ultimate parental control app that offers real-time monitoring of all the goings-on in your loved one's phone. Its wide range of monitoring features paints it as a capable watchdog for every family.

Pros and Cons

Before we begin, you should be aware that any app you use has its own advantages and disadvantages. Luckily, with uMobix, the former heavily outweighs the latter - as you can see for yourself in the table below.

Standout Features

Now, off to the good part! uMobix offers a ton of useful features, and while not each one of them made it to the list below, we highlighted some of its best. Check them out yourself!

Monitors Calls and Texts

This feature lets you view all incoming and outgoing calls and text messages. It allows you to track your family's interactions on texts and calls even when they delete every record of them from their phone. Moreover, uMobix also will enable you to restrict calls from suspicious numbers and turn off messages from such contacts.

Grants Access to Social Apps

uMobix gives you unfettered access to your target's social media accounts. This covers all popular apps like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, etc. It allows you to view their news feed, block content you might find harmful, configure app settings, and read messages. According to a recent study by the National University (NU), social media use, if unchecked, can lead to compulsive behavior, serve as a distraction, and prevent nurturing genuine relationships in a family - which is where uMobix shines, letting you keep the doomscrolling of your loved ones in check.

Provides Internet Protection and Monitoring

uMobix allows you to monitor your family's internet use by logging their browser history and bookmarks. Browser history gives you a glimpse of the pages visited, the time visited, and the number of times each page was visited. What's more, uMobix provides a mailbox scanner that monitors every incoming and outgoing email. This feature also tracks any accounts that your target signs up for using their email.

Tracks GPS Location

The app offers a comprehensive location tracker, allowing you to locate your family members in just a matter of seconds. Working in hidden mode, this feature uses GPS to give you their precise location and coordinates on Google Maps. You can use this feature to find a missing phone or in situations such as kidnappings, missing children, and runaways.

Enables Streaming

This nifty feature lets you access the target phone's camera and microphone. With it, you can activate the front or back camera to find out where your child or spouse is. You can also take a snapshot without their knowledge. The streaming feature allows you to take both photos and video, and it will let you know if the camera on the target device is active when you are monitoring it.

Gives Full Control Over the Target Phone

uMobix gives you remote access to the target phone, allowing you to delete unwanted apps, restrict app usage, block Wi-Fi, or even block the device. This feature allows you to delete distracting or harmful apps and limit how long your family can use certain apps. With it, you can manage their screen time, thereby preventing addiction and helping them develop healthy habits in the digital space. If the target phone gets stolen, this feature can help you avoid leaking sensitive data by blocking the device to prevent further use.

How to Use uMobix

Setting up the app does not require you to be particularly tech-savvy. You can get it up and running in these few steps:

1. Visit the website and click on the Try Now button.
2. Create an account, purchase a subscription, and choose the OS of the device you want to access.
3. Check your email for confirmation and login details. uMobix will send a detailed step-by-step guide to your email to help you set up the app on the target device. For iPhone monitoring, you only need to provide their iCloud credentials to initiate tracking.
4. Once done installing, open your online dashboard to control and monitor your target device.

xMobi

xMobi is a cell phone monitoring app for iOS and Android devices that allows you to track every activity on your loved one's phone. Thanks to its 10-second refreshes, the app provides real-time updates on all the information and activities on the target device. The setup and installation process is quite straightforward and takes just a few minutes to complete.

Standout Features

xMobi has its uses (pretty good ones, if we have anything to say about it!), and so we compiled the list below to showcase the best of them:

• Keylogger: The app gathers every keyboard entry on the target device. This grants you access to usernames, passwords, and common keywords used.
• View contact list: This feature allows you to view your kid's or spouse's entire contact list. With it, you can see names, phone numbers, email addresses, and more. You'll also get to view their favorite contacts.
• SMS viewer: It instantly lets you view all incoming and outgoing text messages, including deleted ones.
• GPS locations and routes: This feature allows you to view a detailed history of all visited locations. xMobi will also provide timestamps and sketch out the path taken by your target.
• Browser history ad bookmarks: It feature lets you view all the websites visited and all the saved bookmarks on the target device.
• Access to photos and videos: xMobi allows you access to all photos and videos on your child's or spouse's gallery.

Setting Up and Using the App

Getting the xMobi app up and running is fast and easy. Here are the steps to follow:

1. Visit the website and click on the Try It Now button.
2. Create an account, choose the target device type, and select and purchase a suitable subscription plan.
3. Complete the installation using the instructions sent to your email.
4. Start monitoring your target device.

Conclusion

Technology has become part and parcel of our daily lives. For all its perks, undeniable as they may be, the tech wave has also brought about a host of unique risks. For this reason, parents need to step up and safeguard their families from these risks. You can achieve that and more, armed with a robust parental monitoring app. We've explored two of the best options in the market today, and you couldn't go wrong with either choice.