By Caitlin Walsh, managing editor 

Nick Droege always knew that the ultimate goal was to make his app available for free, and at last, it finally is. The co-owner of the safety app SafeTrek was happy to announce that now, safety is free at your very fingertips, thanks to the success it has seen since the beginning.

“I like to think of the people who downloaded SafeTrek in the first couple months when it was paid as investors in our product and social mission,” Droege said.  The app, which was previously offered at a price of $1.99 on the Apple App Store, has users hold down a button until they arrive safely where they are going, at which point they release the button and enter their PIN number. When no PIN number is entered, nearby police are alerted.

The low price of the app didn’t bring on many complaints, however—safety was worth the cost, for many. “We of course knew that everyone would prefer the app to be free instead of cost, who wouldn’t?” Droege said. “However, we rarely heard of people that were unwilling to download SafeTrek because of the cost.  That is why we picked the low price point from the beginning. “

The major success of the app thus far and it’s new, free availability is the only major change for now, however—Droege knows not to mess with success. “We like how simple our app is, and we don’t want to overcomplicate it by adding more features,” he said.  “The biggest development point for us right now is working on the data we are collecting.  We are working on cleaning up all the information of where users are feeling unsafe and then preparing to take it to universities, cities, and companies that can utilize the information to make improvements to public safety.“

Photo credit Caitlin Walsh, news staff.