Last week Google released a Web app version of Latitude, its geolocation-based social tracking service. At Apple's request, Google made it a Web app instead of a native app that required installation. This isn't an entirely bad thing as I found out after extended use this weekend. There's a lot to like, and some that's not so great. Here's the breakdown:
The good:
• Simple service to use. If you've got it set to automatically refresh your location you just have to fire it up from a bookmark, or home screen shortcut and you're done.
• You can keep it running in a browser tab while you're doing things in other tabs. It's almost like running multiple applications at once!
• Works in both portrait and landscape modes. And what's impressive about landscape mode, is that you can still drag your finger around the map without scrolling the rest of the page.
• Really granular control over who can see where you are and what you're doing. Right down to a per-friend level.
• Turn-by-turn driving directions in your browser.
The bad:
• Safari-only, which means no push notifications, full-screen user interface, or special sounds.
• Missing some of Google Maps' bells and whistles including things like public transportation and walking directions. And no Street View of course.
• Slightly sluggish performance when compared to the Google Maps app. Filling out forms, and response when clicking on a button can be a bit delayed. Might just be our old, chugging iPhone 3G though.
The video:
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.
Google has two new applications that let users of its Latitude service share their location with people who are not using the service.
The first, for Google's Talk service, will update your chat status with your location (at a city level) every time you check in with Latitude. The other is a badge you can stick on your blog or social-networking profile that shows precisely where you are.
It looks like this:
(Credit:
CNET Networks)
Just like embedding a Google Map, you can pick the terrain type and zoom level, and it pumps out some simple code for you, including a link back to Google Latitude.
Google is promising more Latitude applications. Yahoo has already beaten Google to the punch on one front, with its Friends on Fire application for Facebook, which lets users share their location with other Facebook buddies using Yahoo's competing Fire Eagle service.
Taking a different approach to Google's Latitude software, Yahoo has released a Facebook application called Friends on Fire that lets people share their location with each other.
Google Latitude is an island unto itself, using Google's own technology for cell phone-based location detection and for managing who gets access to your location. Friends on Fire, though, stitches together a variety of services: Yahoo's Fire Eagle, a service that can store and share your location with authorized applications, and Facebook, which handles the issue of identifying who your friends are and granting them permission to see your location.
The service is intriguing, though as with any service that has to tiptoe carefully around a lot of privacy landmines, it can be somewhat burdensome to set up. It's great that Yahoo is making something real out of its Fire Eagle service, which previously was more about plumbing than a faucet.
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