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Google Latitude Comes to the App Store
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If you had read what I was responding to, you would hopefully have seen my point.
The internet is certainly making too easy to invade people's privacy. Perfect way for parents to track their kids every move.
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"You're a kid, right?
It's same as every other smart phone, what is your point? The iPhone is kind of useless with out service...
$90/month? I hope you're calling from Kazakhstan to pay those rates! But even then there's still Skype unlimited North America calling for $2.99.
hee hee I read that with the Apple voiceover from the commercials.
I don't know much about Google Latitude. Don't other iPhone users have to have it installed and configure it to allow specific friends to view their location?
…or Vonage for a low monthly fee, includes long-distance. VoiP has its pros and cons, but these days it has come a long way. If you need a landline, I'd get a VoiP system before dishing out ridiculous amounts of $$$ to traditional landline providers.
I did see the orig. and your point... I just don't agree. My point was I pay for cell phone and internet service to my iPhone... so I don't consider the $2000 you're referring too as cost of my iPhone. And the point of the original poster was right on taken in context. Like many things these days with our little gadgets... look what we can do for almost no cost compared to what they cost 10 years ago.
Sorry... not trying to argue with you... but I thought you we're being harsh on a valid comment.
I understand, but I need the connivence of having my iPhone work like a phone and go anywhere and call anywhere. Besides, I need to have a plan on my iPhone, so why not take the unlimited calling? It's not expensive.
For pete's sake please go back and look at the comment I was responding to before making some ill-informed reply!
the criminal energy and inventive spirit of a criminal mind or a government will find a way to track you regardless what you have set in the phones settings.
They likely will, occasionally, and if they do it without a proper subpoena (which certainly does happen) then I hope they get busted (and they might not).
But for anyone who worries about that to the point of wishing the app didn’t exist, why not just worry that there’s a government GPS chip inside all kinds of devices you never suspected? Your flashlight, your car, your belt buckle, your shoe... or your iPhone GPS itself, turning on six times a day to send your location due to Apple iOS team being infiltrated by government spies.
Privacy and corruption concerns in the US can be absolutely valid—but a visible app that you choose to install and then choose how it tracks you, with a hacker community watching it for unauthorized transmissions, is not any more troubling than the simple fact of carrying anything big enough to hold a battery and antenna
(Now that’s good paranoia!)I’d like this for finding friends who are hiking when we start at different times or from different trailheads. Or at big festivals/trade shows. Or in shopping districts, malls and amusement parks. Certain specific uses. (Which the iPhone can already do up to a point: you can SMS your location from one iPhone to another.)
Or whether you even own a phone at all. (Since we’re talking about whether you COULD be watched, not whether people ARE watching you right now.)
Possibly—but I’m not jealous of Google navigation anyway:
* It only works where you have a good Internet signal. I’ve seen that bite my Android-using friends, and in rural areas or on longer trips it’s inevitable. Or, if the signal is there but weak, it’s just really slow (the image detail anyway).
* Excellent iPhone navigation software is cheap: I got Navigon MyRegion for $25, and even when not on sale it’s a good buy. There are other choices too. And they work, quickly, with no cell coverage at all! (But they do take up space.)
You can buy Navigon etc. for Android too—at least in some countries—so this is not an iPhone advantage. But it makes the Android built-in app more of nice little thing and not a killer feature.
By the way, iOS GPS multitasking is great. I can run Navigon in the background, with full voice guidance and re-routing as needed, and run ANOTHER GPS app (no jailbreak needed) in the foreground. I use either Google Earth (free) or the regular Maps app in the foreground. I then get the nifty satellite photography (and I see my position but not my route) but I can fall back on Navigon if I want to see my route details or if coverage lapses. I assume Android can do the same, with equal battery efficiency, but then I’m always assuming Android does what my iPhone does and being surprised to be wrong
And I'm sure the kids will know it's there within a day.
I just tell my kids I get you a phone, you a) answer it when I call/txt you or b) otherwise use it within Dad's Terms of Service which are defined but subject to change with some notice. You don't, no phone. I put this app on and they turn it off....no phone, they just violated Dad's Terms of Service.
Incidentally, the same "Dad's Terms of Service" also applies to use of home WiFi/Internet, Television, car use, eating the food we prepare for the family and general rules of hygiene, dress code and cleanliness as well.
Are people really that afraid to parent their kids these days? Since when did the inmates take over the asylum?
Yeah, people never even question what's in those flu shots they get every year. The government already knows where you are, people, even WITHOUT a phone. Be afraid, very afraid!
Me like.
No, I don't think people are afraid. Just stupid. Proof? Dancing with the Stars.
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You're a kid, right?
No, but I'm sure I'm older than you. Do I have to be a kid to know what's it's like to be one?
LMAO!!!!!
Funniest reply I've read on here in some time. Sig-worthy!
+50 Intrawebs to you!
Although I find "checking in" to be exactly what I'd look for in an app like this, I can see how this app would work wonders for some businesses out there.
Could I use this to find my girlfriend in a shopping mall? Usually while she's on the rampage I'm sitting somewhere in the corner playing angry birds.
what i'd like to know is if the email alerts that are triggered, still work on this city level setting, that way you could be generalised to a city but still have alerts when a buddy is in the vicinity unexpectedly.
Good for small businesses to track staff to calculate mileage , inform customers when staff will arrive on their site. The possibilities are endless. Hhehe its the kind of things I develop at work and now Google doing it for free, although been on android for a while now.
I have the same.
There is a dialog - just because you *can* track your kids doesn't mean you *will*, and just because they *can* be tracked doesn't mean they *will*.
My kids will not be tracked so much in a punitive way, unless they start abusing their privileges. We have that discussion regularly. They seem to be doing pretty good. I generally don't care much what they do as long as they keep me informed (within reason of course).
Kids want to have fun. I get that, I was a kid once too. I just make sure that they let me know what they are doing and when they are doing it and we keep in good contact.
If/when it becomes a problem, terms change.
But Latitude could be a really good tool - in ways lots of people have already described.
Anyway, I am discussing this as a hypothetical because my kids don't have smartphones (or GPS phones)....