This morning Google announced that it has new software that will let mobile phone users share their whereabouts with family or friends, and that it will be on the iPhone soon.
It's being called Google Latitude and the technology is a new feature of Google Maps. The software is for mobile devices and it comes with an iGoogle gadget that can be installed on your computer.
Google says:
"Once you've opted in to Latitude, you can see the approximate location of your friends and loved ones who have decided to share their location with you, So now you can do things like see if your spouse is stuck in traffic on the way home from work, notice that a buddy is in town for the weekend, or take comfort in knowing that a loved one's flight landed safely, despite bad weather."
However, even Google acknowledges that this software could be used for stalker-ish purposes but says they have built in "fine-grained privacy controls." Plus everything about the software is opt-in, so if you don't want anybody to see where you are they will not be able to.
Google explains:
"For instance, let's say you are in Rome. Instead of having your approximate location detected and shared automatically, you can manually set your location for elsewhere -- perhaps a visit to Niagara Falls. Since you may not want to share the same information with everyone, Latitude lets you change the settings on a friend-by-friend basis. So for each person, you can choose to share your best available location or your city-level location, or you can hide."
Right now you can get Google Latitude on the Blackberry, S60, and Windows Mobile operating systems via google.com/latitude. Again, Google says that it's coming to the iPhone "very soon" through Google Mobile App available for download on the App Store.
When are they going to allow TomTom or CoPilot to give us proper SatNav for the iPhone? This functionality has been available on either of them but far better than anything Google can do.
It's the one thing I REALLY miss from my WinMo devices and the one thing that might tempt me back.
There's an app already like this called Loopt. On Your iPhone | Loopt
Unless this Google app runs in the background (which breaks the rules) then your location will only be shown when the app is open and active just like loopt.
"Once you've opted in to Latitude, you can see the approximate location of your friends and loved ones who have decided to share their location with you." -- If I'm interpreting this correctly once you share your location then you're always displayed to your friends no matter if you have the app running or not?
yeah, so can we link our Loopt account with Latitude or Latitude with Loopt? They really should all link together so half your friends arent on one while half are on the other. I'm already happy that loopt links to our facebook status.
so heres what im thinking...it will use ANY phones gps capabilites (or location services) to send a text or something like that to a database showing your location at the time. so your location would be uploaded at the time of sharing it...it would not change unless you reopened the app. im thinking this would work the same way with a mobile phone. it would only upload the location at the time of running the app.
i dont even know if ANY phone would support just hosting your location at all times. that part is just off the top of my head....actually all of this is just off the top of my head. hahahahaha.
There was that application for the iPhone, can't remember what it was called. It was a lowjack solution, basically worked the same in method. But it posted to the server based on a setting you picked for time interval updates. worked really well when I was playing with it, I can't remember what it was called now for the life of me though.
It was really good in the situation you lost or your iPhone was stolen. You could track back a text to yourself if the "finder" used their simcard and it would give you the number. Or you could go online and view the map where the phone was in the last 5,10,15 mins.
Well I know Boost Mobile has this sort of thing built in to some of there phones with that whole "Where u @?" thing. I personally would love it if it always ran in the background, no matter what, that way I could always track my own phone and find it if I lost it (although google maps isn't always very accurate on a 2g).
Great concept but totally useless unless Apple decides to finally offer background push. Also someone should inform Google that Egypt bans anyone but the government or military from using GPS devices. This is why in Egypt the GPS function on the iPhone 3G is disabled.
Great concept but totally useless unless Apple decides to finally offer background push. Also someone should inform Google that Egypt bans anyone but the government or military from using GPS devices. This is why in Egypt the GPS function on the iPhone 3G is disabled.
Why would Google care? It's not their responsibility, but the user's. (and by the way what a stupid law)
Yahoo is working on a project to link all location data together. Fire Eagle
So again, I’m also hoping that one or the other will link Google Location with Loopt. Everyone I know already uses Loopt so I would have to add yet another separate app.
Why would Google care? It's not their responsibility, but the user's. (and by the way what a stupid law)
I agree it's a stupid law for the Egyptian population to not be allowed to use GPS throughout the country but it's a law which manufacturers and resellers have to obey. Anyway, I was surprised to see the video advertising this new app with saying you could find where your friend is while in Egypt. Since GPS location services are banned in Egypt then Google is misleading the public into believing they could use this service in Egypt.
I agree it's a stupid law for the Egyptian population to not be allowed to use GPS throughout the country but it's a law which manufacturers and resellers have to obey. Anyway, I was surprised to see the video advertising this new app with saying you could find where your friend is while in Egypt. Since GPS location services are banned in Egypt then Google is misleading the public into believing they could use this service in Egypt.
I've only just watched the video. I must admit I was wondering why you'd mentioned Egypt but having watched the video i see your point!
Advertising someone breaking the law probably isn't the best thing they could have done.
How about iLocalis, for all of you jailbreaked peeps out there, I love it and if someone tries to steal my iPhone, I'll track those ******* down in a second by going into iLocalisę website! Hell yea!
Loopt is good, but I'm expecting the Google version to be better because Google products are usually good, and recently they seem to be getting even better.
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