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Apple Updates Find My Friends with Friend Location Notifications

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Apr 12, 2001
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Apple has updated its and Find My Friends with iOS 6 support and a few new features, including push notifications for locations.

Arstechnica digs deeper into the new features of the app, which includes a revamped interface and the ability to send texts to friends from within the app. They also note one particularly notable new feature: push notifications for friend locations:
But the most significant new feature--and the one that will undoubtedly cause at least a bit of controversy--is the ability to set notifications for when your iOS-using friends arrive or leave a certain location. You can set this notification by viewing a specific friend's location and then tapping the "Notify Me" button on the top right. This brings you to a screen that allows you to decide whether you want to be notified when that person is coming or going, and with which address to associate the notification.
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Arstechnica notes that you can disable permissions from friends but it disables the Find My Friends functionality completely for that individual, not just automated notifications.

Find My Friends is a free download on the App Store [Direct Link].

Article Link: Apple Updates Find My Friends with Friend Location Notifications
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2012/09/19/apple-updates-find-my-friends-with-friend-location-notifications/
worlds collide

this is where integrity of person and privacy of self collide... head-on... its great for people who want to share info with VERY close friends/family, but i'm sure its only a matter of time before a news story breaks.
side note: there are already lots of devices/apps available that do this very thing, the only big change here is the sheer number of people who will now have access to the technology as a free download.
 
Google Latitude briefly had a similar feature but Google removed it shortly after implementation.

I personally love this feature for letting friends and family know when I've left home for a trip or arrived at my final destination without needing to notify them all, especially when it's very late. It also lets my partner know when I've left work and am on my way home for dinner. While I can see it's not a feature for everyone, the per-person basis means you only share this info with the people you want to. If it can be coupled with an expiration date, like location sharing already can be (I believe this was demoed in the iPhone 4S keynote), it could be a great way to allow for such notifications only for specific times.

What do you think?
 
I've been using the new Find My Friends app since the beta release. As far as I can tell, even checking again now, I can't set a notification on another friend that lasts indefinitely. It's a one time notification that expires after use, then I must set it again. Additionally, I can only set one at a time per person. So I can't say, notify me when my friend arrives at any of these dozen bars, ever. This one time notification is useful for something like notifying me when my wife arrives at her mom's house which is a 6 hour trip.

On the other hand, I can add notifications (multiple) from my own iPhone for others (multiple) that do last indefinitely. This would allow me to notify my wife anytime I'm leaving work. Or notify a group of people everytime I arrive at the office.

But again, as far as I can tell, other people can't set up an ongoing notification about me - it's just the one time, then they have to create it again.

Maybe it's changed post beta... or maybe I'm missing how the feature works.
 
Skiing

A bunch of friends and I used this for skiing last year... Was easy to find people on the hill :) Notifications would be great to know when they reached the bottom, etc.
 
skwoytek said:
I've been using the new Find My Friends app since the beta release. As far as I can tell, even checking again now, I can't set a notification on another friend that lasts indefinitely. It's a one time notification that expires after use, then I must set it again. Additionally, I can only set one at a time per person. So I can't say, notify me when my friend arrives at any of these dozen bars, ever. This one time notification is useful for something like notifying me when my wife arrives at her mom's house which is a 6 hour trip.

On the other hand, I can add notifications (multiple) from my own iPhone for others (multiple) that do last indefinitely. This would allow me to notify my wife anytime I'm leaving work. Or notify a group of people everytime I arrive at the office.

But again, as far as I can tell, other people can't set up an ongoing notification about me - it's just the one time, then they have to create it again.

Maybe it's changed post beta... or maybe I'm missing how the feature works.
Click to expand...
Can you post screenshots of the configuration page?

I'm also curious if a user can prevent others from setting up notifications for him/her.

I haven't updated to iOS 6 yet but does the Reminders app and Find My Friends allow you to set the geofence without inputting a specific street address? It'd be useful to be able to drop a pin on the map and also set the size of the geofence. At least in iOS 5 Apple only allowed you to input an address (which had to be saved to a contact) and did not allow customization of the size of the geofence.
 
This is one scary app:eek:, so not gonna let my girlfriend know about this,
she'll know exactly when i go to the flower shop , leave quickly ( this indicating i didnt spend enough time to pick the right flowers :()
 
Apple/Google Latitude need to implement notifications when one of my friends becomes within say 10 miles of me or something.

Even if I ended up having one pint with someone when I'm back home, It would be worth it.
 
I just updated and my NOTIFY button is greyed out. I take it both people need to be on the new version for this feature to work.
 
claimed4all said:
I just updated and my NOTIFY button is greyed out. I take it both people need to be on the new version for this feature to work.
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That's the case.

However, if you click on the "Me" tab, you can setup leave/arrive notifications to send to anyone's email. It will warn you if they don't have iOS simply to say that they may not be able to share locations with you.
 
Surely this will eat the battery life up big time if its constantly monitoring your location for change?
 
J400uk said:
Surely this will eat the battery life up big time if its constantly monitoring your location for change?
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It has clearly shortened battery life, but no more than setting a location based reminder. I've been using location reminders and location notifications for a while and I still don't run out of battery at the end of the day. Also, once you're using any persistant location based service, you might as well use them all... I guess.

The problem here is that if I set a notification on a friend to tell me when they arrive in Timbuktu, I can kill their battery without them knowing. Additionally, they'll have to deduce who's set the notification, because I don't think Apple lets them know, which may be a feature they should add.

According to Apple, they both use cell tower trianglulation to find your location, which isn't as bad as GPS would be.
 
Finally, but recurring push notifications would be more helpful. I get that some people take issue with the privacy aspect, but you do get to pick who follows you. My wife and I will use this all the time, as it will save time texting each other.
 
bflowers said:
Finally, but recurring push notifications would be more helpful. I get that some people take issue with the privacy aspect, but you do get to pick who follows you. My wife and I will use this all the time, as it will save time texting each other.
Click to expand...

This is available. Your wife sets up her arrive/leave recurring push notifications to you on her phone. You set yours to send to her from your own phone.
 
This is very useful. My fiancé always lets me know when he's about to leave work but sometimes someone needs to talk to him about something at the last minute or he gets distracted. But now I can set a notification for when he actually leaves.
 
skwoytek said:
This is available. Your wife sets up her arrive/leave recurring push notifications to you on her phone. You set yours to send to her from your own phone.
Click to expand...

Thanks,
I was going on what I had read about it being single use notifications, but hadn't explored it personally. I was waiting a day or two on upgrading her phone in case I had problems with the upgrade.


anjinha said:
This is very useful. My fiancé always lets me know when he's about to leave work but sometimes someone needs to talk to him about something at the last minute or he gets distracted. But now I can set a notification for when he actually leaves.
Click to expand...

This is pretty much exactly what we have wanted it for, except I also travel for work, so notifying my wife when I arrive or leave some of my client locations would help my wife know when I might get home without me having to constantly send text messages.
 
skwoytek said:
The problem here is that if I set a notification on a friend to tell me when they arrive in Timbuktu, I can kill their battery without them knowing. Additionally, they'll have to deduce who's set the notification, because I don't think Apple lets them know, which may be a feature they should add.
Click to expand...

Agreed - and there should be a setting to prevent people from setting geofences on you.
 
the next step...

what i'm hoping is that i'll soon be able to say things like "Siri, please remind me to talk to Joe about the car show next weekend when i see him." resulting in my phone giving me a notification with context next time our phones are detected as in the same location... THAT would be the best development ever for this app.
 
jonney92 said:
is there a way to disable find my friends or can it just be deleted?
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It's an app you have to download from the app store, so just don't download it, or if you have, you can go and turn off location services for the app in Settings.

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mms13 said:
Agreed - and there should be a setting to prevent people from setting geofences on you.
Click to expand...

I think if you have given someone permission to follow you, then implicitly they can geofence you. I don't think I have too much of an issue with that. If you don't want them to geofence you, don't let them follow you.
 
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