LastBar

No bars? LastBar shows you the nearest place where your phone will work.

LastBar is a map of mobile coverage made by the people who use it. Phones note the signal of their carrier at the places they pass. Those readings become a map of where there is signal and where there is none. When you are stuck, the map is already on your phone.

FIND SIGNAL Choose what you need: an emergency call on any carrier, a call or SMS on your own, or data. LastBar gives you the distance and the direction to the nearest place that has it, says whether it is higher or lower than you, and turns with your compass as you go. It needs no connection.

WATER, SHELTER AND HELP Far from anything, the map shows water, shelters, huts and caves, clinics and hospitals, police, fuel and peaks, from OpenStreetMap. Tap one for its address and its phone number. Find Signal points you to the nearest water or shelter too.

A MAP FOR EVERY CARRIER See the coverage of all carriers at once, or pick your own. Show any signal, voice, or data on 3G, 4G or 5G. Green is strong, orange is fair, red is weak, and an empty outline means no signal at all. Tap a place for its signal, its download speed, its readings and how recent they are, its altitude, and its coordinates, to copy or to share. Search for a town or a country by name.

SATELLITE MAP With LastBar Pro, switch the map to satellite pictures and see the land itself under the coverage: mountains, rivers, fields and towns. Saved areas keep them offline.

WORKS WITH NO CONNECTION LastBar is made for the places with no signal, where you need it most. The coverage around you is kept on your phone. Save an area before a trip to have its map, its coverage, its towers and its points of interest with you, offline.

YOUR OWN READINGS If you agree to contribute, LastBar takes a reading every few minutes while it is open: where you are and how high, and the kind of network your iPhone is on. Your readings show on your map at once, and are sent when you have a connection again. The Stats tab says what you have mapped, day by day.

ANONYMOUS There is no account and no sign-in. LastBar never reads your phone number, your contacts or your calls. Your phone gets a random id that says nothing about you. Readings are combined into map cells before anyone sees them, and are never shared with advertisers. Stop at any time, and delete everything you contributed from within the app.

YOUR LOCATION LastBar asks for your location while you use the app, and for nothing more: to show where you are, to guide you to signal, and for the place of a reading. It takes no readings while closed. You can use the map without giving your location.

FREE, WITH ONE PURCHASE The map, Find Signal, the points of interest and your own readings are free, and stay so. The free version shows one small ad, and never on Find Signal. LastBar Pro is one payment, with no subscription: it removes the ad, adds the satellite map, lets you save 10 areas where there is one, and keeps the coverage of more places on your phone.

GOOD TO KNOW The map is as good as its readings. Where nobody has been with LastBar yet, it is empty: every trip you take with the app open fills it in, for you and for everyone after you. An iPhone tells an app the kind of network and not how strong the signal is: the strengths on the map were measured by phones that can. Coverage changes, and a reading says what was, not what will be. The satellite pictures are from 2016 and show the land, not single houses. Water, shelters and the other points were mapped by volunteers: one may be wrong or gone, and water is not always safe to drink. In an emergency, call your local emergency number.

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