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I've slowly made the switch, and I quite like being able to see my wife on both the desktop and app versions of Google Maps. I do wish it had messaging feature

I've slowly made the switch, and I quite like being able to see my wife on both the desktop and app versions of Google Maps. I do wish it had messaging features, and geofencing alerts would be a huge bonus so I can be alerted when she arrives at a location safely. I also think there needs to be some Nest integrations so I can ask "Where is X?" or "How far is X" and it would say "X is currently 10 minutes away from your location". I guess what they have is a good start, but I really hope they can push the tech further to make it even more useful than what it is at current.

kace91 6y ago
I wasn't aware of the feature, but it sounds... a bit worrying, frankly. Not for your use case I'm sure, nor for the majority of people, but I can see how it can be used in cases of abusive relationships to establish control.
- fyfy18 6y ago
  I may be wrong as I switched a few years ago... but as I remember Find my Friends on iOS had all these features.
  - mvanbaak 6y ago
    It's called 'findmy' now, and yet, it has all this. And it works with their watch and notebook as well, not just phone.
- nefitty 6y ago
  This is a valid concern. I may be speaking from a place of privilege, but does it really make sense to curtail innovation because a small set of people might use a technology for nefarious purposes?
  - kace91 6y ago
    how would you define innovation? I would argue that technology that is better designed to make nefarious purposes harder to achieve, rather than just dumping features onto the user, is innovative. User protection is also a feature, one that's usually way more valuable than convenience but that we only appreciate when it's gone and it's too late. It's not necessarily a matter of privilege, we're all potentially at the risk of having an account hijacked by a rando, or having a device stolen, or having a relationship go sideways to a crazy point.
    - TeMPOraL 6y ago
      I think this point can only be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. On the one hand, if there's an easy win that would defeat some nefarious use case while not impacting legitimate ones, it should be taken. On the other hand, it's a fact of nature that a human can weaponize anything if they put their mind to it, so it's impossible to design technologies that cannot be used for doing harm to others.
    - robertlagrant 6y ago
      > I would argue that technology that is better designed to make nefarious purposes harder to achieve, rather than just dumping features onto the user, is innovative. Redefining general terms is the thing that adds the least possible value to a conversation. It often just makes things worse.
      - kace91 6y ago
        Are you in disagreement with the point of my comment, or just the way it's worded? Perhaps I can explain what I mean better: New features, by itself, aren't the only way technology moves forward, even thought it's the more noticeable and entertaining way. An improvement in the way existing features are accessed, or even a protection for certain features being accessed in a way that's potentially wrong, can also be an improvement or innovation. Static typing, enforced linters, or the Rust borrow checker are good examples of restriction-as-a-feature. Therefore, I disagree with the original comment's implication that restricting features in lieu of security or misuse is a blocker for innovation.
- throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
  Interesting response. Gently warming frog? If something like this was described in say 1990 I suspect your opinion might be stronger, perhaps even horrified. Te parent's "...but I really hope they can push the tech further to make it even more useful than what it is at current" is basically 'let's have more of this'. Convenience is evidently winning out over risk or privacy intrusion and a the panopticon not by the back door but by the front door, with a welcome mat outside and a nice cup of tea waiting within. To be blunt, I find this POV scary.
  - TLightful 6y ago
    1000 upvotes.
  - shadowgovt 6y ago
    David Brin predicts this in The Transparent Society: these technologies are ushered in not by governments looking to enforce control over their people, but by private individuals looking for more control over their lives (including keeping their property and the people in their lives they are responsible for safe and secure). Ring doorbells and cheap webcams are other examples. Brin's takeaway is the genie is out of the bottle, and the thing to do is decide what level of surveillance we're comfortable with.
  - ipython 6y ago
    Actually in the early 2000s I remember openly welcoming this technology. At the time it was not obvious to me at least that this sort of information would so easily be abused by corporations and governments. It just seemed like a great personal assistant and the rose colored glasses were firmly attached.
- Newky 6y ago
  Not arguing that this could be used in an abusive relationship, but if we work on the basis that someone could install a similar program on their partner's phone that's not Google. There are a lot of pro's for the tracked person with the Google implementation. Google email you quite frequently (I believe monthly?) to tell you that you are sharing your location and with whom. You can disable it at any time. Obviously disabling such a feature in an abusive relationship may not be an option.
  - prox 6y ago
    I fail to see upticks for sharing your location that couldn’t be resolved with a “Hey I am going to x” message
    - adjkant 6y ago
      Some random things I use find my friends and Snapchat's map for: 1. Seeing if/when friends get home safe after a late night (they may forget to text before going to bed) 2. ETA of friends I'm meeting that travel by bike 3. Is X in the neighborhood if I wanted to stop by? (avoids the check message, still will check for most friends before showing up at the door) Sharing your location is a personal choice I'd never judge someone for not doing, but I very much enjoy it with close friends I trust.
      - prox 6y ago
        Ah I see, for a trusted friend group that could work. Thanks for sharing!
      - kace91 6y ago
        For the two first points, Whatsapp lets you share your location for a small amount of time (either 15 mins or 1 hour). It's very common when a group of people is going to hang out, so the rest of them that come a bit later doesn't need to go through the whole dance ("hey are you still at X place?" "have you moved?" "I can't see you" ) but still leaves you with privacy by default.
- hrktb 6y ago
  This is a valid concern, sadly it's only a drop in the bucket. Talking to people trying to get divorced and preparing to have their partner become an "enemy", a lot of them had their apple and google accounts managed by their partners. It was either a shared account and their partner accessed the info just logging in, or it was their own, but setup and 2FA'd by their partner who would get notified of external logins etc. And most of the account services have no protection against "yourself" logging in. The state of account management can be very dire for people who don't actively manage theirs from beginning to end. Then the complexity of some settings can make it look daunting and they just bail on the whole process.
  - LorenPechtel 6y ago
    Yup, in an awful lot of relationships one person is a lot more competent than the other at such things and naturally does that sort of thing.
- TuringNYC 6y ago
  It is important to consider the bad, but also important to consider the good, and design with both in mind. I use the Trusted Contacts app to track my mom as she goes into the city for doctor's appointments. We're often on the phone together, calling Uber's together to just the correct spot, all while i'm sitting in the office in another city. Thankfully my mom is not in this condition, but in our city we regularly get notices of senior citizens who are confused and lost. There is another situation where this type of app helps.
kortilla 6y ago
Why do you need to keep such close tabs on your wife’s location to the point where you need geofencing? Does she have some sort of disability or do you live somewhere extremely dangerous? I’m just having trouble wrapping my mind around tracking that used to be reserved for criminals wearing ankle bracelets.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- throwaways885 6y ago
  Maybe some less Orwellian context: It's very normal now for friends/family to have some kind of permanent location sharing. Snapchat has this feature built in and I was quite surprised to see dozens of friends have this feature turned on and widely sharing by default.
- michaelt 6y ago
  Partner A: Please send me a message when you leave work, so I know when to start making dinner (or not to wait, if you're working late) and not to worry you might have been in an accident. Partner B: I'd be happy to, but as I'm forgetful when I'm busy working late, and me forgetting will make you worry, we should use something that works automatically. (Add or remove going to the gym, stopping by the store on the way home, getting a beer on Friday...) Obviously, you could accomplish the same thing by reliably leaving work at the same time every day - but some would say ceding authority over your own schedule is a greater indignity than ceding privacy over your current location.
  - kortilla 6y ago
    > and not to worry you might have been in an accident. Partner A sounds like he/she might have some deeper separation anxiety or trust issues to work through. Being out of contact for multiple hours should be normal without conjuring up worries about accidents. Has partner B ever been in an accident on the way home? Would worrying somehow prevent it? If partner B stops for more than the pre-approved amount of time at a given stop light, how many seconds does it take for partner A’s panic to set in? 60 seconds? Remember, B could have gotten into an accident and seconds matter! Partner A needs to chill the fuck out and remember that partner B is a functioning adult that can survive multiple hours without the observation and worry of partner A.
sverhagen 6y ago
Seems like a good feature to catch your spouse cheating, but I always wonder, how would such transparency let me go buy a surprise birthday gift. I have the same problem with our shared bank account.
- muppetman 6y ago
  You don't take your phone with you when you go out to buy the surprise gift, or you turn off location services. The shared bank account is harder, I set aside a little bit of money into an account only I can see each payday, so that I can buy things without the surprise being ruined.
- Angostura 6y ago
  We have a shared main bank account and our own bank accounts where we keep some personal spending money.
- nucleardog 6y ago
  Transparency doesn’t mean that anyone cares or is looking, just that the information is available. My wife doesn’t just randomly pull her phone out throughout the day and check where I am. She uses it to answer a question like “is he on his way home / can I start supper?” or “he’s normally home 3 hours ago, has he even left work yet?”. And generally only once I’ve not responded to her just asking me. If I wanted to go buy her a surprise gift I’d just tell her beforehand “got some errands to run after work be a couple hours late” or walk out on a weekend and say “running to the store, back in a couple hours”. In that case unless I take way longer than I figured and don’t check in or respond to her checking in she has no reason to check where I am.
  - rightbyte 6y ago
    I would want an explicit prompt for that. Or eg. "Track me for 8h" if I ski home through the snow in the middle of the night after a dinner or w/e. The thought of being looked up like this is very uneasy.
mvanbaak 6y ago
I will be downvoted but: The things you mention are all available in 'FindMy.app' on the apple ecosystem (works with phone, notebook, and watch)
- michaelbrooks 6y ago
  Unfortunately, my wife is using an Android phone so this wouldn't work for us.
amoshi 6y ago
All you've mentioned (apart from Nest) is available in Life360 so why wait for the ad company Google to do this?

kace91 6y ago

I wasn't aware of the feature, but it sounds... a bit worrying, frankly. Not for your use case I'm sure, nor for the majority of people, but I can see how it can be used in cases of abusive relationships to establish control.

fyfy18 6y ago
I may be wrong as I switched a few years ago... but as I remember Find my Friends on iOS had all these features.
- mvanbaak 6y ago
  It's called 'findmy' now, and yet, it has all this. And it works with their watch and notebook as well, not just phone.
nefitty 6y ago
This is a valid concern. I may be speaking from a place of privilege, but does it really make sense to curtail innovation because a small set of people might use a technology for nefarious purposes?
- kace91 6y ago
  how would you define innovation? I would argue that technology that is better designed to make nefarious purposes harder to achieve, rather than just dumping features onto the user, is innovative. User protection is also a feature, one that's usually way more valuable than convenience but that we only appreciate when it's gone and it's too late. It's not necessarily a matter of privilege, we're all potentially at the risk of having an account hijacked by a rando, or having a device stolen, or having a relationship go sideways to a crazy point.
  - TeMPOraL 6y ago
    I think this point can only be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. On the one hand, if there's an easy win that would defeat some nefarious use case while not impacting legitimate ones, it should be taken. On the other hand, it's a fact of nature that a human can weaponize anything if they put their mind to it, so it's impossible to design technologies that cannot be used for doing harm to others.
  - robertlagrant 6y ago
    > I would argue that technology that is better designed to make nefarious purposes harder to achieve, rather than just dumping features onto the user, is innovative. Redefining general terms is the thing that adds the least possible value to a conversation. It often just makes things worse.
    - kace91 6y ago
      Are you in disagreement with the point of my comment, or just the way it's worded? Perhaps I can explain what I mean better: New features, by itself, aren't the only way technology moves forward, even thought it's the more noticeable and entertaining way. An improvement in the way existing features are accessed, or even a protection for certain features being accessed in a way that's potentially wrong, can also be an improvement or innovation. Static typing, enforced linters, or the Rust borrow checker are good examples of restriction-as-a-feature. Therefore, I disagree with the original comment's implication that restricting features in lieu of security or misuse is a blocker for innovation.
throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
Interesting response. Gently warming frog? If something like this was described in say 1990 I suspect your opinion might be stronger, perhaps even horrified. Te parent's "...but I really hope they can push the tech further to make it even more useful than what it is at current" is basically 'let's have more of this'. Convenience is evidently winning out over risk or privacy intrusion and a the panopticon not by the back door but by the front door, with a welcome mat outside and a nice cup of tea waiting within. To be blunt, I find this POV scary.
- TLightful 6y ago
  1000 upvotes.
- shadowgovt 6y ago
  David Brin predicts this in The Transparent Society: these technologies are ushered in not by governments looking to enforce control over their people, but by private individuals looking for more control over their lives (including keeping their property and the people in their lives they are responsible for safe and secure). Ring doorbells and cheap webcams are other examples. Brin's takeaway is the genie is out of the bottle, and the thing to do is decide what level of surveillance we're comfortable with.
- ipython 6y ago
  Actually in the early 2000s I remember openly welcoming this technology. At the time it was not obvious to me at least that this sort of information would so easily be abused by corporations and governments. It just seemed like a great personal assistant and the rose colored glasses were firmly attached.
Newky 6y ago
Not arguing that this could be used in an abusive relationship, but if we work on the basis that someone could install a similar program on their partner's phone that's not Google. There are a lot of pro's for the tracked person with the Google implementation. Google email you quite frequently (I believe monthly?) to tell you that you are sharing your location and with whom. You can disable it at any time. Obviously disabling such a feature in an abusive relationship may not be an option.
- prox 6y ago
  I fail to see upticks for sharing your location that couldn’t be resolved with a “Hey I am going to x” message
  - adjkant 6y ago
    Some random things I use find my friends and Snapchat's map for: 1. Seeing if/when friends get home safe after a late night (they may forget to text before going to bed) 2. ETA of friends I'm meeting that travel by bike 3. Is X in the neighborhood if I wanted to stop by? (avoids the check message, still will check for most friends before showing up at the door) Sharing your location is a personal choice I'd never judge someone for not doing, but I very much enjoy it with close friends I trust.
    - prox 6y ago
      Ah I see, for a trusted friend group that could work. Thanks for sharing!
    - kace91 6y ago
      For the two first points, Whatsapp lets you share your location for a small amount of time (either 15 mins or 1 hour). It's very common when a group of people is going to hang out, so the rest of them that come a bit later doesn't need to go through the whole dance ("hey are you still at X place?" "have you moved?" "I can't see you" ) but still leaves you with privacy by default.
hrktb 6y ago
This is a valid concern, sadly it's only a drop in the bucket. Talking to people trying to get divorced and preparing to have their partner become an "enemy", a lot of them had their apple and google accounts managed by their partners. It was either a shared account and their partner accessed the info just logging in, or it was their own, but setup and 2FA'd by their partner who would get notified of external logins etc. And most of the account services have no protection against "yourself" logging in. The state of account management can be very dire for people who don't actively manage theirs from beginning to end. Then the complexity of some settings can make it look daunting and they just bail on the whole process.
- LorenPechtel 6y ago
  Yup, in an awful lot of relationships one person is a lot more competent than the other at such things and naturally does that sort of thing.
TuringNYC 6y ago
It is important to consider the bad, but also important to consider the good, and design with both in mind. I use the Trusted Contacts app to track my mom as she goes into the city for doctor's appointments. We're often on the phone together, calling Uber's together to just the correct spot, all while i'm sitting in the office in another city. Thankfully my mom is not in this condition, but in our city we regularly get notices of senior citizens who are confused and lost. There is another situation where this type of app helps.

kortilla 6y ago

Why do you need to keep such close tabs on your wife’s location to the point where you need geofencing? Does she have some sort of disability or do you live somewhere extremely dangerous? I’m just having trouble wrapping my mind around tracking that used to be reserved for criminals wearing ankle bracelets.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
throwaways885 6y ago
Maybe some less Orwellian context: It's very normal now for friends/family to have some kind of permanent location sharing. Snapchat has this feature built in and I was quite surprised to see dozens of friends have this feature turned on and widely sharing by default.
michaelt 6y ago
Partner A: Please send me a message when you leave work, so I know when to start making dinner (or not to wait, if you're working late) and not to worry you might have been in an accident. Partner B: I'd be happy to, but as I'm forgetful when I'm busy working late, and me forgetting will make you worry, we should use something that works automatically. (Add or remove going to the gym, stopping by the store on the way home, getting a beer on Friday...) Obviously, you could accomplish the same thing by reliably leaving work at the same time every day - but some would say ceding authority over your own schedule is a greater indignity than ceding privacy over your current location.
- kortilla 6y ago
  > and not to worry you might have been in an accident. Partner A sounds like he/she might have some deeper separation anxiety or trust issues to work through. Being out of contact for multiple hours should be normal without conjuring up worries about accidents. Has partner B ever been in an accident on the way home? Would worrying somehow prevent it? If partner B stops for more than the pre-approved amount of time at a given stop light, how many seconds does it take for partner A’s panic to set in? 60 seconds? Remember, B could have gotten into an accident and seconds matter! Partner A needs to chill the fuck out and remember that partner B is a functioning adult that can survive multiple hours without the observation and worry of partner A.

sverhagen 6y ago

Seems like a good feature to catch your spouse cheating, but I always wonder, how would such transparency let me go buy a surprise birthday gift. I have the same problem with our shared bank account.

muppetman 6y ago
You don't take your phone with you when you go out to buy the surprise gift, or you turn off location services. The shared bank account is harder, I set aside a little bit of money into an account only I can see each payday, so that I can buy things without the surprise being ruined.
Angostura 6y ago
We have a shared main bank account and our own bank accounts where we keep some personal spending money.
nucleardog 6y ago
Transparency doesn’t mean that anyone cares or is looking, just that the information is available. My wife doesn’t just randomly pull her phone out throughout the day and check where I am. She uses it to answer a question like “is he on his way home / can I start supper?” or “he’s normally home 3 hours ago, has he even left work yet?”. And generally only once I’ve not responded to her just asking me. If I wanted to go buy her a surprise gift I’d just tell her beforehand “got some errands to run after work be a couple hours late” or walk out on a weekend and say “running to the store, back in a couple hours”. In that case unless I take way longer than I figured and don’t check in or respond to her checking in she has no reason to check where I am.
- rightbyte 6y ago
  I would want an explicit prompt for that. Or eg. "Track me for 8h" if I ski home through the snow in the middle of the night after a dinner or w/e. The thought of being looked up like this is very uneasy.

mvanbaak 6y ago

I will be downvoted but: The things you mention are all available in 'FindMy.app' on the apple ecosystem (works with phone, notebook, and watch)

michaelbrooks 6y ago
Unfortunately, my wife is using an Android phone so this wouldn't work for us.

amoshi 6y ago

All you've mentioned (apart from Nest) is available in Life360 so why wait for the ad company Google to do this?