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Google timeline may not be useful to you but it’s an incredible tool to record your own past. Believe me, I care far more than google in my ability to know whe

Google timeline may not be useful to you but it’s an incredible tool to record your own past. Believe me, I care far more than google in my ability to know where I was on April 24 2016.

seba_dos1 4y ago
I don't think I have ever in my life thought "I wish I had location history turned on so I could check where I was at that date". Could you share some examples of how can it be useful? I do find it cool to have such data to do the kind of analysis as presented in this post, but not cool enough to let others (especially Google) possess this data as well.
- Zobat 4y ago
  When was the last time (at the beginning of the pandemic) that I went in to the office. When was it the conference was at "that town". Sure there's other ways to find the information but I don't mind having it tracked. To each his own but I find more value in it than I think I give up.
- daveoc64 4y ago
  It's great to be able to answer questions like "when did we go on that trip to X" or "how long has it been since we went to Y". I live in the UK, but I can go back to May 2014 and see everywhere I went in Florida on a holiday. Every restaurant, theme park, shop etc. It's a great way to take a trip down memory lane. I also use it on a day-to-day basis - e.g. if I need to record what hours I worked on a certain day, I can use it to give me an approximate time I went out for lunch.
- luckylion 4y ago
  Not the parent, but I can share one. A guy I worked for long ago was part of a partnership of architects and they split up. One of the other partners was known for never parting amicably and sued him. He claimed they had agreed on something and my client had failed to deliver and thus owed him some large sum. He presented notes he had allegedly taken during the talk they had a few years earlier including date and time and the word of another partner as support, who claimed to have been present. My client checked his old calendars and just found the word "Copenhagen" for that + the previous day. With a bit of searching and checking, he figured out that he was incredibly lucky: he had been in Copenhagen that day to sail in a regatta, had lots of witnesses and photographs and easily won the case, the other two got into hot water for falsifying documents and giving false statements, though I don't know the outcome. He was lucky to have had a multi-day thing and putting it into his calendar. Not sure if "Google showed me being far away" would've stood up, but it can certainly be useful to know your location a few years ago.
- scotty79 4y ago
  I had my catalytic converter stolen. Thanks to location history I could check when I left the car there and when I came back and noticed the problem. Since at first I didn't know problem was result of a theft I didn't take note of the time when I noticed the problem and I also could recall for how long the car stayed there. Location history enabled me to accurately and confidently report the time window when crime occurred to the police.
  - necovek 4y ago
    Did that help with tracking down the thief too? I suspect the outcome is still the same of your catalytic converter being gone for good, even if it helped you narrow down details for a police report. As such, the utility is still zero, since the desired outcome is "get my property back", unless you needed this many details for insurance purposes (they usually only ask for a police report, and police are happy to take any data since they are unlikely to find the perpetrator anyway).
    - scotty79 4y ago
      > Did that help with tracking down the thief too? Of course not. > I suspect the outcome is still the same of your catalytic converter being gone for good, even if it helped you narrow down details for a police report. Correct. > As such, the utility is still zero, since the desired outcome is "get my property back", unless you needed this many details for insurance purposes (they usually only ask for a police report, and police are happy to take any data since they are unlikely to find the perpetrator anyway). That was not the desired outcome. My desired outcome was to make reporting to the police go as smoothly for me as possible which I'd preferably entirely skip if not for the fact that insurer required me to report it. Talking to the police (or anyone really) is a stressful event for me so any help with establishing what to say was very much appreciated. On semi-related note my car is at repair shop for 3 months already and I have no idea how much longer will it be because apparently no supplier of catalytic converters is willing to estimate when they'll have a single item for Toyota Auris.
      - necovek 4y ago
- slig 4y ago
  The data is being tracked either way. You can only choose if you want to see it or not.
  - seba_dos1 4y ago
    I'm not running any services that would report this data back to Google on my devices. I'm aware that it can still collect some data on me based on my browsing and how I connect to a couple of their services I still happen to use, but I'm fairly certain that it's nowhere near the fidelity of what location history would give them and I prefer it to stay this way. Other replies so far have actually convinced me that I don't need to reconsider it, as the benefits seem minuscule compared to the price ;)
  - pelorat 4y ago
    not true
- WmWsjA6B29B4nfk 4y ago
  To me this is an amazing tool to extract lost memories. I look at random tracks in history sometimes, and it’s surprising how much can you remember from that day that you would never remember otherwise. On a more practical note, I visited a random restaurant in a town I was visiting which turned out to be an amazing place. Didn’t remember the name. A few years later I’m in the same town and would not have found the place if not for the location history.
- scrollaway 4y ago
  Everyone already replied with their use cases and I've been in several similar ones. In general, I obtain a huge amount of value in being able to know what happened in my own past. This can be both for work and for personal reasons. For this, my calendar and Google Timeline are the two tools I use the most. Most usefulness is in the past 1-2 weeks, and things become less useful over time, right up until they become extremely useful. For example "Oh crap, I lost this thing, the last time I saw it was on this date. What are the possible places I could have lost it? Let's retrace." It's hard to convey how much things change once you're able to reliably have this information. Your mindset changes. Things you couldn't do before are unlocked. I would love a better Google Timeline, one whose data I personally own especially. I suspect there will be an explosion of these types of apps at some point once people catch up.
Zobat 4y ago
Same here, I believe that I get more value from this data than Google does. I'm sure someone at X (insert any service that has a lot of data I've generated) has done something that I wouldn't be ok with with someones data. But as Scott Hanselman has said; "Microsoft isn’t nearly as organized as it’d need to be to be as evil as you think it is." https://twitter.com/shanselman/status/1003590025462681600 https://twitter.com/shanselman/status/1003590025462681600 I'm guessing the same holds true for all the other services.

Google timeline may not be useful to you but it’s an incredible tool to record your own past. Believe me, I care far more than google in my ability to know where I was on April 24 2016.

seba_dos1 4y ago

I don't think I have ever in my life thought "I wish I had location history turned on so I could check where I was at that date". Could you share some examples of how can it be useful? I do find it cool to have such data to do the kind of analysis as presented in this post, but not cool enough to let others (especially Google) possess this data as well.

Zobat 4y ago
When was the last time (at the beginning of the pandemic) that I went in to the office. When was it the conference was at "that town". Sure there's other ways to find the information but I don't mind having it tracked. To each his own but I find more value in it than I think I give up.
daveoc64 4y ago
It's great to be able to answer questions like "when did we go on that trip to X" or "how long has it been since we went to Y". I live in the UK, but I can go back to May 2014 and see everywhere I went in Florida on a holiday. Every restaurant, theme park, shop etc. It's a great way to take a trip down memory lane. I also use it on a day-to-day basis - e.g. if I need to record what hours I worked on a certain day, I can use it to give me an approximate time I went out for lunch.
luckylion 4y ago
Not the parent, but I can share one. A guy I worked for long ago was part of a partnership of architects and they split up. One of the other partners was known for never parting amicably and sued him. He claimed they had agreed on something and my client had failed to deliver and thus owed him some large sum. He presented notes he had allegedly taken during the talk they had a few years earlier including date and time and the word of another partner as support, who claimed to have been present. My client checked his old calendars and just found the word "Copenhagen" for that + the previous day. With a bit of searching and checking, he figured out that he was incredibly lucky: he had been in Copenhagen that day to sail in a regatta, had lots of witnesses and photographs and easily won the case, the other two got into hot water for falsifying documents and giving false statements, though I don't know the outcome. He was lucky to have had a multi-day thing and putting it into his calendar. Not sure if "Google showed me being far away" would've stood up, but it can certainly be useful to know your location a few years ago.
scotty79 4y ago
I had my catalytic converter stolen. Thanks to location history I could check when I left the car there and when I came back and noticed the problem. Since at first I didn't know problem was result of a theft I didn't take note of the time when I noticed the problem and I also could recall for how long the car stayed there. Location history enabled me to accurately and confidently report the time window when crime occurred to the police.
- necovek 4y ago
  Did that help with tracking down the thief too? I suspect the outcome is still the same of your catalytic converter being gone for good, even if it helped you narrow down details for a police report. As such, the utility is still zero, since the desired outcome is "get my property back", unless you needed this many details for insurance purposes (they usually only ask for a police report, and police are happy to take any data since they are unlikely to find the perpetrator anyway).
  - scotty79 4y ago
    > Did that help with tracking down the thief too? Of course not. > I suspect the outcome is still the same of your catalytic converter being gone for good, even if it helped you narrow down details for a police report. Correct. > As such, the utility is still zero, since the desired outcome is "get my property back", unless you needed this many details for insurance purposes (they usually only ask for a police report, and police are happy to take any data since they are unlikely to find the perpetrator anyway). That was not the desired outcome. My desired outcome was to make reporting to the police go as smoothly for me as possible which I'd preferably entirely skip if not for the fact that insurer required me to report it. Talking to the police (or anyone really) is a stressful event for me so any help with establishing what to say was very much appreciated. On semi-related note my car is at repair shop for 3 months already and I have no idea how much longer will it be because apparently no supplier of catalytic converters is willing to estimate when they'll have a single item for Toyota Auris.
    - necovek 4y ago
slig 4y ago
The data is being tracked either way. You can only choose if you want to see it or not.
- seba_dos1 4y ago
  I'm not running any services that would report this data back to Google on my devices. I'm aware that it can still collect some data on me based on my browsing and how I connect to a couple of their services I still happen to use, but I'm fairly certain that it's nowhere near the fidelity of what location history would give them and I prefer it to stay this way. Other replies so far have actually convinced me that I don't need to reconsider it, as the benefits seem minuscule compared to the price ;)
- pelorat 4y ago
  not true
WmWsjA6B29B4nfk 4y ago
To me this is an amazing tool to extract lost memories. I look at random tracks in history sometimes, and it’s surprising how much can you remember from that day that you would never remember otherwise. On a more practical note, I visited a random restaurant in a town I was visiting which turned out to be an amazing place. Didn’t remember the name. A few years later I’m in the same town and would not have found the place if not for the location history.
scrollaway 4y ago
Everyone already replied with their use cases and I've been in several similar ones. In general, I obtain a huge amount of value in being able to know what happened in my own past. This can be both for work and for personal reasons. For this, my calendar and Google Timeline are the two tools I use the most. Most usefulness is in the past 1-2 weeks, and things become less useful over time, right up until they become extremely useful. For example "Oh crap, I lost this thing, the last time I saw it was on this date. What are the possible places I could have lost it? Let's retrace." It's hard to convey how much things change once you're able to reliably have this information. Your mindset changes. Things you couldn't do before are unlocked. I would love a better Google Timeline, one whose data I personally own especially. I suspect there will be an explosion of these types of apps at some point once people catch up.

Zobat 4y ago

Same here, I believe that I get more value from this data than Google does. I'm sure someone at X (insert any service that has a lot of data I've generated) has done something that I wouldn't be ok with with someones data. But as Scott Hanselman has said; "Microsoft isn’t nearly as organized as it’d need to be to be as evil as you think it is." https://twitter.com/shanselman/status/1003590025462681600 https://twitter.com/shanselman/status/1003590025462681600 I'm guessing the same holds true for all the other services.