Google Maps will let you share your location with friends and family | Hacker News Reader

Google Maps will let you share your location with friends and family

techcrunch.com

Can't help but roll my eyes.

Moved from Google Maps (Latitude) to Google Plus (Android only) to Google Maps.

It wasn't broken, it did a great job and you could access it from the browser. It also gave interesting stats including how far you had traveled and how far to go to get to the moon ( I only got half way there :( ).

It used to work fine for Google Plus iPhone users, until the app was updated to remove the feature. I have now changed to Glympse for iPhone/Android comparability.

Great. Because it's not like we've been using Google Plus for ages to track our whereabouts. ;) And before that, Latitude.

But wait, there's competition - we also have their Trusted Contacts, which features similar functionality.

For real, I was using Latitude years ago to allow family to track me on long trips.

I never used the 'Find My Friends' crap on Apple but it was the same deal from what I gather.

This is frustrating... Latitude was great and easy to find. Then of course they had to go and retire it, true Google style.

In Plus, the functionality is hidden away behind their myriad tab panes (they have the bottom one, and an additional vertical behind a hamburger - it's on the latter) - but it works just fine. I've got a bunch of friends there and we all enjoying seeing each other's whereabouts. My wife could however never remember where to find it, and got me onto Life360.. (which has some interesting extra bits including arrival and departure notifications).

The functionality probably always belonged in Maps. What will be interesting is whether they restrict the access like in Trusted Contacts or allow an unfettered list like in Plus / Latitude.

Just got the update here too. I have had Locations removed from G+, but added in Maps.

I have to define my sharing again.

I'm sharing my locations with family in a country that hasn't received the new Maps. Brilliant.

Maps' location sharing and Trusted Contacts use the same backend infrastructure, just powering different product models. Among other things, this means that it's totally reasonable to use both simultaneously if you want both types of sharing (perhaps for different people), and it won't increase the drain on your battery to do so.

This is good to know, and makes sense; thanks!

What I really want is a low-impact, low-risk way of knowing where someone who is happy that I can do this actually is. My typical use case is working out if my wife is driving home, or at the gym etc -- where SMS/IM won't get a response, and a phone call would be intrusive. I don't want constant sends from the remote device, rather than ability to trigger a pull of current geo.

That is - low values of intrusion, negligible battery usage, relatively low exploit surface.

Glympse[1]is handy for ad hoc notifications - I use it sometimes to give family an idea of my time of arrival. But it also requires me to activate it, and runs for (IIRC) at most two hours. And by golly it sucks up battery.

Cerberus[2] could do this, but it's not the primary use case, and the diddling around that's required is messy - plus, massively intrusive given the feature set (remote wipe, camera & audio recording, etc).

[1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.glympse.an...

[2] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.lsdroid.ce...

It's a damn shame Google hasn't solved this yet, because with my iPhone, it's as easy as "share location with contact", and I'm presented with "24 hours" or "indefinitely". And it just works. There are even geobounding alerts available.

Google released Trusted Contacts [0] a while ago that essentially works like how the OP wants. You can one-time request a contact's location and (unless they block it) it will share it after a timeout. It also allows temporary sharing and has last-known location for if your battery dies.

[0]: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.and...

Thanks for the recommendation.

First time I'd read the description it looked like the recipient of the request had the option to grant / deny - which kind of defeated the purpose. Re-reading it looks like there must be some kind of time-out feature, where it will default to a response? Anyway - will give it a go.

Yes, that's exactly how it works. It asks first, but if there's no response in a while (and you're on their list of trusted contacts), then it defaults to allow.

Okay -- we played with this tonight -- and it's not fit for purpose.

There's a 5-minute delay, with a screen-on alert for the duration at the b-end, before you can get a geo-location response back.

If the 5-minute delay was configurable (I want it immediately), and the pop-up was a notification (sys-tray rather than full screen / break -screen saver) then it'd be a contender.

As it is, it's less useful than sending an SMS.

Whats your use case for needing to know someones location and you must know within 5 minutes? or is the objection more about the full screen popup(i.e. if they are at the gym, does the request interrupt their music listening?)

Use case is essentially that there are times when I'll make a quick decision based upon where my wife is. I could be more organised and use Trusted Contacts 5 minutes before I want to know the answer, but I'm typically not.

Thinking commute -- train then long walk home -- if convenient I'd rather share a lift than walk. Not the best example as I really should walk, but nonetheless.

With the gym scenario -- I know the days of week, and rough time, she'll be there, so not the best. In that case it's not the full screen pop-up that's the problem, just the hard-coded 5 minute delay.

Better example: early evenings, I'd like to know if she's working late or driving home. Without requiring that I interrupt her. If I SMS and she's driving, she has to break the law to respond. If I call (or SMS) and she's still working, that's disruptive. If I use Trusted Contacts and she's still working, also disruptive.

I'd never really thought about this stuff before the Google Maps article, and some of the discussion here -- it feels like my use case isn't that uncommon a thing. I may look at some of those family / kid-tracker applications, though last time I reviewed the field there they felt a bit clunky and overly intrusive.

How is that better than the new Google feature?

It's existed for years and will continue to exist.

And it's still within the walled garden of Apple. Same issue with Googles solution.

If you're looking for a Glympse alternative, I made Graticule[1].

Differences:

* you can configure what location technology to use (gps/network/passive)

* no time limit

* you can tweak how often it should update

* privacy conscious

Tweaking the location technology/update interval gives you the freedom to balance accuracy/battery life.

[1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.emilburzo....

Thanks Emil. This looks really good, I've installed it already, but will install on my wife's phone tomorrow to get a feel for the inter-play features.

It sounds like you can adjust the update period only -- which I accept uses modest data & battery -- but no feature to (only) provide location in response to a request-for-location from the far-end?

> It sounds like you can adjust the update period only

and the location technology to use:

    - GPS: best accuracy, bad battery life          -- best used outside cities    
    - Network: decent accuracy, decent battery life -- best used inside cities or areas with lots of WiFi AP's
    - Passive: variable accuracy, best battery life -- best used when you have another location app already doing location requests (like Waze, Google Maps, etc)

> but no feature to (only) provide location in response to a request-for-location from the far-end?

That's correct, it doesn't cover your preferred "click to request updates" use case as I'm not a fan of things happening to my phone by outside requests :)

I'm curious - what about the persistent sharing option here doesn't fit your needs? (For instance, is it that you're concerned about battery usage? Do you want a more active notification to the other person at the time of a triggered pull? Et cetera.)

As Ingress players, we're painfully aware of the cost of GPS to battery life.

But, yeah, this feature looks to be a 'I want to share with person x', rather than 'Person x can request my location without me needing to grant / deny each request' feature. Even reading the original google blog post about it - it sounds like it's not a passive operation. ( https://blog.google/products/maps/share-your-trips-and-real-... )

As chrisfosterelli noted, Trusted Contacts may provide the functionality I'm looking for.

Trusted Contacts, Location Sharing, Location History, etc are all powered by the background location service which is significantly more conservative about battery life than something like Ingress :) But yes, if you're looking for a triggered request then Trusted Contacts may work.

As per my other comment -- after some experimentation, Trusted Contacts is a bit rubbish. It insists on asking user permission at the b-end each time, with a display-on request, and waiting a full 5 minutes (non-configurable) for a response.

Do we know that this new Google feature differs from what you want?

Yes, we do. As per my post of the original google blogpost (rather than the techcrunch write-up of same) it's very much a (far-end) user-activated feature. I'm looking for a local-user activated feature of a remote-device.

My immediate family all share locations via Apple's contacts, painless and very useful. I like the ability to share for an hour or a day with other contacts too, makes meeting friends much easier whenever there's a crowd. The downfall is that it only works with iPhones but for a lot of people, that's good enough.

I've been doing this for years with Glympse. I can't believe it took Google this long to bring around this functionality.

In what situations do you typically use Glympse?

I'm another person but I do use Glympse Express, a version made only for sharing the position. I use it to show friends where I am on the way of meeting them. No more messages about being late or on time. I usually share position with whatsapp. I didn't know it had a share position feature but it's OK to compartmentalize information between different vendors. I'll keep using Glympse.

The same situation that pmontra has described above/below. I love being on time to meet people. However, with Glympse, I don't have to stress about being punctual (even when leaving with enough time). There's no need to risk the life of others (or mine for that matter) by speeding/texting/calling the while driving.

Your friends and family and google

Doesn't google know already if you are using the maps?

It already knows if you are using Android. Assuming you didn't turn off location history. I left it turned on because: a) Google finds out where I am in many ways and b) it actually is more than just for diagnosis, so it provides me better results etc.

They do, and you can even find out exactly how much they know (and maybe use that data for your own purposes).

https://www.google.com/maps/timeline

True, I thought it was kind of funny that they're just now getting around to allowing you to share with 'friends and family' when we've been sharing our location with google this whole time...as if our relationship with google is more intimate.

> There’s even a new maps app designed specifically for people following each others’ cars on long road trips.

What app would this be?

Classic Google taking an existing feature, rip it out, and put it back into another app with Minimum Viable Product functionality, and slowly restore it to parity

I can see a very valid (and very useful) use case for parents to track their kids when they are out with friends, or in a field trip. Hopefully less missing children.

Ah, to be old...

When non-smart phones and GPS for the general public arrived in my country, there was a discussion among the lines of "now that it's possible to track your kids' position, would you do it?". The general consensus seemed to be "no, that would be a violation of their privacy, and it would imply that I don't trust them".

20 years later, and it's a feature in all phones. I guess that point is finally settled.

Was that the consensus among techies, or the general public?

We use life360 for this. I can see where my wife is, I can know when she arrives home safely. She gets a notification when I leave work so she knows I'm on my way home to help with the kids.

So glad I grew up before any of this was possible.

I have mixed feelings about a lot of this.

For younger children, it's hard to object. But the general idea that you might give general access to your location info to a family member and that not doing so could become an issue feels... bothersome.

In a different vein, as someone who grew up pre-cell phones, I'm a bit bothered by the idea that you should always be reachable. That said, as satellite trackers/SMS/emergency beacon devices become more affordable I do start to ask myself if something like this isn't prudent on a relatively remote solo trip.

I've seen this in Life360. Have you found youself in situations where you want to share with others outside your circle? Ex. People who don't have Life360 installed.

I was using this app but it seemed like it drained the battery so me and my SO got rid of it. :\ It was super useful though, but couldn't get pass the power drainage.

As an engineer at Life360, I can tell you that we hear you loud and clear. We haven't always been the best at achieving high accuracy _and_ power efficiency, but we are improving the technology dramatically. Battery drain has been a major focus for our engineering team for a long time, and especially recently. Give it a try again and let me know how your experience is.

Yep, same here. The notifications in Life360 work great.

Google Maps is not new in this game, but, imho, "GeoSlavery"[0] problem gets more serious as tech develops in general. [0][PDF] http://www.colorado.edu/geography/class_homepages/geog_4103_...

I'm curious, for those that do use a location-sharing type feature (or app like Glympse), what is the appeal of doing so? In which situations do you typically share?

I share location with a few very close friends - for those who live in other cities, just cause it's fun. For those who live in the same city as me, because it enables serendipity ("oh hey i'm near your house and i see you're home, let's grab tea if you have time!").

I've also shared location with significant others in the past just cause it makes everyday coordination and organization better ("oh she hasn't left work yet, i'll hold off on cooking dinner")

This of course implies that a) you have nothing to "hide" from one another, and that b) you be mature about it (eg don't be upset if your friend is home but doesn't reply to your text/says they're busy), but these are things i value in my personal relations anyway.

Is that through an always on location-sharing service? Or something you'd do at a specific moment or situation (e.g. I'm headed somewhere to hangout, I'll turn on location sharing with some friends I know to increase chances of serendipity)

Always on through Find My Friends.

When driving to pick up someone. Especially when its multiple people from different places. Pretty much the same reason why Uber shows the location of the arriving car.

That makes sense. What tool do you use to do that? Is it something you generally do before you're going to pick someone up (before you get in the car) or do you also find ad-hoc reasons (in the middle of your drive) to do so?

I've been looking for good apps to do this.

Glympse Express does this well without much extra hassle. You put in a time limit and it gives you a link you can share. The link shows a map tracking you location (in a browser). No accounts or viewer apps required.

I've used this at a music festival, to make it easier to find friends.

I uninstall the app at the end of the festival though. I don't need any more companies tracking me.

That's a cool use for it! Might be useful for amusement parks with larger groups too.

Which app do you use, Glympse?

I don't actually remember. It was two friends in particular that encouraged everyone to set it up.

It was an app intended for parents to track their children. I don't like that on principle, which is part of the reason I removed it as soon as the festival ended.

She wanted to stalk me so I decided to show her some latitude.

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