With the exception of parents now being able to keep tabs on their kids, I can't for the life of me understand the appeal of this application. There are about a billion situations where I don't want someone knowing where I am and maybe 1 or two where I would. Even if this were a free app, I wouldn't even think of getting it for a second.
I heard about this on the radio this morning. They aren't releasing it for the iPhone, are they? That's kind of gross.
Seems like it's a web only thing: http://www.google.com/latitude/intro.html. And I can see the appeal. I assume only approved people can see your location, so it's not like strangers would be stalking you. Maybe you and a friend happen to be near each other, this would be a great way to see that so you can find them to say hi. I'm going to try it out and see how it works. Would be interesting to have an iPhone app front-end instead of relying on a Safari version. Edit: Ok, so it doesn't even work with mobile Safari, likely because of Safari not supporting Flash and the iPhone having built in Google Maps. I guess I'm not going to try it out.
I can imagine the conversation when the got the idea. "Hey, I just read this old book called '1984' and it gave me some great ideas for our next program."
Yeah it's a bit 1984, but somewhat nice from a keeping tabs on family perspective. The way I figure is that's it's going to be a built-in to the Google Maps app in the iPhone firmware since it would need to piggyback off of the GPS, Cell Signal or Skyhook database to narrow down your present location. Taking a look from a different perspective, as the thing develops out could there be a utilizable API that would enable gamers to incorporate this data into games and other apps. I know that currently some apps already use location aware information, but leveraging the Google Profile information it could be the equivalent of a master key to games and apps so you can share information and keep it one location rather than having several games each with their own player profile account that you have to manage separately.
If it's browser-based, you have to repeatedly reopen the page. That'd get old quick. And seriously, keep a tab on kids? If you don't trust them, then you haven't raised them well enough. Sheesh
Quite useful for drunks who need to "phone home" and say "Pleesshhh, pick me upp.... burp..... eedunno where i am..... oh godddd, i'm gonna throw up... Blurgh!"
