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Google Latitude for iPhone available to some
Article updated at 4:35 p.m. PT with more information from Google's official announcement.
(Credit:
CNET/Screenshot by Stephen Shankland)
Starting Thursday, iPhone users surfing to m.google.com/latitude can access Google Latitude, Google's friend-tracking feature. Latitude plots friends' pictures on a Google map when they opt to share their location with you.
Earlier this morning, some CNET employees were able to start experimenting with Google's Web-based Latitude for iPhone ahead of the official announcement.
Once loaded, Latitude becomes a tab on m.google.com, Google's mobile face.
The main interface presents a list of contacts. Clicking on your own icon lets you set your status and edit your privacy settings.
Clicking a contact's icon presents the option to send an e-mail, get directions to the contact's location, and change the precision of location information you'd like to share with the person. The options are "best available location," "only city-level location," and "hide from this friend."
The three privacy options let you set the application to detect your location automatically, to require you to set it manually, and to hide your location altogether.
The Web app integrates with the Gmail contacts list, letting you select contacts you'd like to invite from the list; those who already are Google Latitude users get a special icon to let you know they're signed up already. You also can invite people by their e-mail addresses without using Gmail contacts.
In addition to tracking friends, the menu supplies options to search or clear the map, view traffic, get directions, and see a satellite view.
Before Google announced Latitude for iPhone, we surmised that the Latitude feature is meant as an upgrade--or at least as an alternative--to maps.google.com for iPhone users. In a statement, Google explained that the company worked closely with Apple to create the Latitude experience that works around Apple's inability to run apps--even browser-based--in the background. Google gets around this by updating location when you launch the app, and while it runs in the foreground.
Google's Latitude Web app runs on iPhone operating system 3.0. It is currently available in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and in the U.K., and U.S.
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by MrReason
July 24, 2009 8:35 AM PDT
- Not very impressive at all. Surprisingly, my location is often shown way off from my actual position, even though the google maps application that came with the iPhone has my location spot on. I don't understand why given what I would assume is the same data with applications from the same company, Latitude is often so far off in displaying my actual position. Also, it updates the position rather slowly - every 30 seconds to a couple of minutes between updates - real time would be nice. Try Loopt. It's much better.
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by
July 24, 2009 9:19 AM PDT
- Neither I'm I, but its better than some people say.
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(14 Comments)Gps position is kind of funny, the html5 implementation is rather new. When we go after location in the native applications we design we usually takes more than one data sampling. The more points you take the more accurate the position. Google maps must take multiple samples and like any good gps application use an algorithm to smooth out the results. The range for a well designed apps varies from a few 100 meters to around 10 meters. although under really good conditions you can get an impressive 3 meters.
I beliieve google lattitude is built around google app engine, google app engine is great for a lot of applications , unfortunately not this type, and the designers were probably told what technology they had to use.
Why its a web application I don't know, there are a lot of apps like this in the appstore, loopt is a good example, I'm building one that has some of that capality too... The technology doesn't seem to violate either the apple or att TOS, in terms of bandwidth this can be done with very few hits to networking resourcing. So its probably more a political reason, maybe a dispute or contract provision between apple or google. or maybe they just wanted an application that showed off htm5 location features. One things for sure its not the best design.