Cloak App: Incognito Mode for Real Life

screen shot via Cloak website

With the advent of social networking sites becoming too personal, there has been a movement to anonymous or antisocial networks. A new app called Cloak, hopes to take the antisocial network and apply it to real, everyday life.

Cloak is an idea from programmer Brian Moore and former Buzzfeed creative director Chris Baker.

Personally, I think we’ve seen the crest of the big social network. Things like Twitter and Facebook are packed elevators where we’re all crammed in together…I think anti-social stuff is on the rise. You’ll be seeing more and more of these types of projects,” Baker told the Washington Post.

Cloak works by gathering Instagram and Foursquare geolocation data of the user’s friends and then places that data on a map relative to the user. A user can see the location of their friends, whether they want to avoid them or not, and set up a list of undesirable people so they can receive alerts when the user is nearby.

The company describes the app as:

Incognito mode for real life.”

When using Cloak, the app will alert the user when one of their friends that has been designated as undesirable is nearby, allowing the user to forever avoid that person.

Cloak hinges on the user’s friends using Instagram and Foursquare extensively. If they aren’t checking into locations and taking photos, Cloak doesn’t have the ability to gather their geolocation data. Geolocation data from other sites like Facebook, Google+ and Twitter isn’t collated by Cloak just yet.

Whether an app of this kind takes hold still has yet to be seen.

Right now we’re just focusing on iOS. If the app proves to be a hit with users, of course we’ll expand the idea…Plus we’ve got some fun features we’d like to roll out beyond what’s included in our launch,” the company told Time.com.

Cloak is currently available in the Apple app store. If it is successful, expect to see Cloak available across other devices. Until then though, keep an keen eye out for those you would rather not see.