Google Latitude Web App for iPhone Now Available

[michalko.j]

Having issues where the map goes all grey when zooming out and zooming back in with full 3G service. Makes it difficult searching for people in other countries. I realize this was just made available and hope to see it more robust in the future.

 

[zombitronic]

I tried Latitude last night. When I was done I closed Safari but I did not specifically close the Latitude window. I plugged my phone in and went to bed. When I woke up this morning, my phone felt warmer than usual, especially sine it wasn't being used. I was a bit concerned but I unplugged it and went to work. I just checked my phone and it was still warm. My battery is also down to 70% and it was just fully charged an hour and a half ago. I haven't been using the phone. I just closed the window with Latitude and now my phone seems to be cooler. If my battery isn't at 40% in another hour and a half, I think I'm blaming latitude for being a battery vampire. This doesn't make sense to me because:

Google notes that due to Apple's restriction on background applications, Google Latitude is unable to provide continuous location updates as it does on other mobile platforms, although it does automatically refresh locations upon launching and while open.

However, this is the only change in my phone usage. Has anyone else had a similar experience?

It's been another hour and a half since I closed the Latitude window and my iPhone is now cool to the touch and the battery is only down to 63%. That's with about 15 minutes of 3G Mac Rumors browsing since last time. Is it fair to blame Latitude for this or was this just an unfortunate coincidence?

 

[ogdogg]

I have been waiting for this app for months but I will be refusing to use it until 1 of 2 conditions are met. The app must either...

Be a stand alone app.

or

Update your location every time the built in email client fetches your gmail.

I urge everyone else to boycott as well. Loopt is the superior app at the moment and despite Google's claim that this is Apple's fault I can't help but think they're forcing web apps to be the future to help their Android based phones while giving iPhone owners the finger. I may now switch my email to a Yahoo account in protest.

 

[HyperZboy]

And to think how fiercely people were arguing and agreeing with Google's public statement that web apps are the wave of the future!

AHHHHahahahahahahahahahahahahha!​

I guess Google has settled that argument for the time being all by themselves with this load of crap.
😀

 

[rwskemer]

I've encountered an issue with Latitude. If a Google Contact you're adding as multiple Gmail addresses, all email addresses within that contact will be added as "friends" within Latitude. Only one of those Gmail accounts will be actually working, and the other(s) are grayed out, "waiting for approval." If I delete one of the email addresses (friends), all the email addresses from that contact are deleted. Anyone else encountering this? Any ideas?

 

[Xibalba]

Great, another thing that wants to track me! Leave me alone! 🙂

i agree - maybe this would be more useful for me like 15 years ago when i was in college or something and was looking around for friends and such. but now i would prefer not to be tracked everywhere. twitter is good enough for location information and updating people...

 

[ogdogg]

i agree - maybe this would be more useful for me like 15 years ago when i was in college or something and was looking around for friends and such. but now i would prefer not to be tracked everywhere. twitter is good enough for location information and updating people...

I couldn't imagine tracking people with this app and I don't care if Google wants to record where I go as long as they keep standing up to the government on privacy issues. I can however see how this would be very useful for finding nearby friends when you're drunk out on the town. The trick is getting everyone to use it, and for that they'll need to integrate it much better for iPhone users.

 

[ntrigue]

Clearly, we are a LONG way from Google Maps integration.

The WWDC keynote impressed me. I imagined a Blackberry Messenger meets Loopt meets Apple-esque experience. Perhaps, it's because I am very social but I'd love to find someone is using Latitude at the table next to me.

I absolutely despise Webapps. In fact, I forgot they existed until Latitude was released on Thursday. Why can't this be a function of Google Maps? As is, your 'friends' must be GMAIL users or it crashes.

 

[Shasterball]

Interesting, but I don't see everyone jumping on board right away. And it's only useful if a good amount of your friends are on it...

 

[mpeterson78]

so is this basically the google version of loopt?

 

[ogdogg]

so is this basically the google version of loopt?

Ya, only without the stand alone app, facebook integration, mix, phone book searching or gps accuracy...

 

[GregA]

... Update your location every time the built in email client fetches your gmail.

I get that they don't want to waste power on GPS or even a network connection unless necessary - but I'd like to see some smarter GPS options.

eg:
1) Record GPS location centrally every time any app accesses location data
2) Supply that GPS location data to any app that request it.
3) When accessing gmail, app could submit last known location without spinning up the GPS 🙂

#2 would be useful for iPhoto too. I could take a picture on my regular camera and activate any location-aware app on the iPhone, then later have iTunes merge the iPhoto photos with the iPhone GPS data.

 

[michelle21]

I get that they don't want to waste power on GPS
#2 would be useful for iPhoto too. I could take a picture on my regul.

Making this a web app was dumb, but the concept is dumb too, do you really want to be tracked without you knowing. loopt has a better concept, and with APNS it could be better.

As to the photos and gps.

Iphone pictures via anything but the camera app strip the exif info, so no location info unless you use private api's.

Even if it was there the info probably wouldn't be correct.

I am writting a couple apps.

One of them records the gps info along with the photo in core data. And makes the photo and info available for sharing in a number of ways.
iphone to iphone
iphone to webserver
iphone to facebook

But I'm finding I need to take a number of samples to get very precise gps locations. And even then it may be off several meters.

My solution is to allow a correction screen, where the user can move the pin on that is placed on the map to a new location, if the initial position is wrong and than resave the information. Thus the location info recorded in the database is very precise.

I imagine this app will be useful for geotagging and maybe archeological applications. Even there its pretty hard to do this type of touches events with the public mapkit.

So I seriously can't see how a webapp that doesn't even use the gps, just network triangulation can be very useful.

But again, I would never want to use lattitude.

 

[neil1980]

Main thing I wanted it for is when you plan to meet up with people.

If your meeting someone at a set time and they arent there, one glance and you can see how far away they are.

Yeah you could send a text or call but if they are driving or something its another distraction which they probably dont need.

Also the getting split up on nights out would be handy... or the time I went ona stag do and turned up late due to work... everyone in a town they didnt know and I was trying to find them going of vague drunken descriptions of buildings... latitiude would have been so much easier but hey, until its native and runs in the background with the map app or something its going to be no use

 

[a1rflow]

Umm. I think it's a little overboard. I don't want people stalking me. I tweet enough about my location already. But hey, some people always gotta take it to the next level!

 

[57004]

Sucks 🙁

This really sucks. It should be integrated in the maps application, the same way it is done in the google maps application for other phones (at least Java and Symbian phones). That way they could also work with Apple to enable automatic updates.

This is useless the way it is now.