7 ms·
Google Latitude retired
- davidw 13y agoLocation history, however is here: https://maps.google.com/locationhistory/b/0 https://maps.google.com/locationhistory/b/0 I'm glad they kept that, I find it quite handy for several things, including as a cross check on how much time I spend at $client.
- whathappenedto 13y agoI used location history a lot, and I am now looking into other gps logging apps because they removed API access to history. The export you can do is only KML and doesn't have information like accuracy for each coordinate, leading to a bunch of non-sense locations you can't easily filter out. I wish they simply had an easy way to subscribe to your own location data, because otherwise many applications are impossible (such as using your real-time location, or for personal analytics).
- testbro 13y agoFor anyone wanting to liberate their data from here, paste this into the JS console with the history page open (only tested in Chrome): var time = time=new Date("2010/01/01").getTime(); //set this to start date setInterval(function(){ window.location="https://maps.google.com/locationhistory/b/0/kml?startTime=" + time + "&endTime=" + (time + 2678400000); time += 2678400000 }, 2000) Doesn't know when to stop, so close the tab when you have all the data you want.
- enjo 13y agoWhat's the best alternative for Android users?
- caffeineninja 13y agoTry Life360. While family-oriented only in name and marketing at the moment, we are cross-platform on iOS and Android and also have a Latitude importer. http://www.life360.com/latitude http://www.life360.com/latitude We're also working on some new features that will make the app less "family oriented" and more universal for everyone.
- jes5199 13y agohttps://www.life360.com/latitude/test https://www.life360.com/latitude/test There is a problem Error calling GET https://www.googleapis.com/latitude/v1/currentLocation?granularity=best https://www.googleapis.com/latitude/v1/currentLocation?granu...: (404) Not Found
- acomjean 13y agoI think there integrating location finding into google+. Its not a great answer, because I'm not sure how location sharing works in google+, but under preferences you can make you location available. Then when people click on your profile they can see where you are. As someone who used to use latitude occasionally to get together and find friends (fairs, small towns)I think I'll miss it.
- Kylekramer 13y agoDepends on use case. Location history, you can just keep using Google Maps. Telling others where you are: http://www.glympse.com/ http://www.glympse.com/, but that is more for a specific period of time rather than passively sharing it as Latitude did.
- swax 13y agoI have an app 'locacha' that lets you share your location with friends in a chat room.
- spankalee 13y agoIt's in the blog post, location sharing has moved to Google+. Here's the link from the post: https://support.google.com/plus/answer/2998354?p=plus_location&rd=1 https://support.google.com/plus/answer/2998354?p=plus_locati...
- ckubal 13y agoQuick plug for something we're working on that's related: chronos, launched on Android this week http://bit.ly/chronos-android http://bit.ly/chronos-android (iOS next week: http://www.getchronos.com http://www.getchronos.com) We passively track how you spend your time – you don't have to do anything, and it lets you know where you’ve gone, with whom, and breaks your time into categories (work, sleep, exercise, home, social, etc.). -charlie
- ta092838 13y agoGoogle's push towards Google+ reminds me of Microsoft's arrogance in forcing their vision of Windows 8. An established company trying to get another piece of the pie that is not their core competency. It's too bad Google is trying to get into the social game. I wish they would stick to the "serious" endeavors that started out with, more Wolfram Alpha, less Facebook. They don't have to own the entire internet, just do things that they can do better than anyone else...
- psbp 13y agoI don't get this complaint. All of these services have a social component built in, so why not just put them all under one umbrella? It's not like Google+ does anything remarkably bad.
- barista 13y agoWhat if I as a user don't want it? Why force me to get it?
- ladzoppelin 13y agoActually when they day comes for me to finally be social on the web, Google+ will be the best option. I just hope they do not make it impossible to use unless you are using Chrome.
- Gormo 13y agoYou're being social on the web right now. The Google+/Facebook version of being social on the web ought to have the word "social" in quotation marks.
- zaidf 13y agoIt's not like Google+ does anything remarkably bad. You've inadvertently summed up everything wrong with google and google+. Somewhere google lowered the bar for its products to "don't do something too bad" instead of "build remarkable things." Google+ may not be bad per se, but it's far from exceptional. When you take something that isn't exceptional and begin forcing it on your users for the sake of strategy, I'll make a bet that it hurts your company long term. Of course, when you build something exceptional(such as gmail), you don't have to shove it onto your users because you've crazy inbound demand.
- kalleboo 13y agoThis was handy, I'll miss it. Luckily my SO is an iPhone user so I still have her on Find My Friends... As the Google wind-down goes on, I've lost all trust in them to keep any of their services running. I won't invest any more time into a new Google service anymore. The only question right now is Google Apps email. I like their Gmail iOS app, but I might switch to another ActiveSync provider (for iOS push support).
- gjm11 13y agoI don't personally care about Latitude, but it does seem recently that Google have been on a crusade to ruin Google Maps on mobile devices. The two most noteworthy instances: (1) screwing up the offline-maps feature (http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/maps/Ck_Pd6UgZCU http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/maps/Ck_Pd6UgZ... -- but they've slightly walked this back: see https://support.google.com/gmm/answer/3246076 https://support.google.com/gmm/answer/3246076) and (2) adding advertisements to the Android version of Maps: http://adwords.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/attract-new-customers-with-local-ads-on.html http://adwords.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/attract-new-customers-... (I don't mind this at all on the web version of Maps, where I'm usually on a display with plenty of pixels, but on a mobile device that's a whole lot of space being taken up by advertisements instead of actually useful information).
- davidw 13y agoDon't forget that from one day to the next they also killed terrain mode for maps on Android. That one made me very grumpy.
- wpietri 13y agoMy current theory is that this is a simple extortion ploy: After getting me to depend on Android Google Maps, they have replaced it with something unusable. Shortly they will release Google Maps Classic for $49.95/year. I will happily pay that; it's cheaper than the blood pressure medication I'd need to counteract all the rage-inducing misfeatures they've put in the latest version.
- jes5199 13y agoSigh. Latitude put Loopt out of business. Now we don't have Loopt and we don't have Latitude. Sharing location on G+ is not the same use case at all.
- Shooti 13y agoLatitudes manager seems happy with the decision: https://plus.google.com/+jlapenna/posts/deBP7kj7rMi https://plus.google.com/+jlapenna/posts/deBP7kj7rMi Also he offers plenty of behind the scenes reasoning in replies to the thread, such as this: "We felt that we'd be able to get quicker feature parity and better newer features by cutting over now than waiting."
- skeletonjelly 13y agoSo they are going for feature parity? Woo! I really miss the freshness value (x minutes ago) and the accuracy radius.
- yock 13y agoThe incredibly frustrating thing about this is that they have continued offering location services as part of Google+, but they've retired a service that works on iOS for one that does not. This strikes me as an incredibly user-hostile action.
- saurik 13y agoI don't understand why Google kills and replaces things seemingly with no thought of migration paths. Anyone know more about what goes on internally that causes companies to just throw up their hands in defeat on a product, forcing users to just start over? Is it really that hard to shim the Latitude APIs over the new service?
- eyeareque 13y agoFrom what I can tell their migration path is "Move to Google+". I can't tell if that is viable, but it does make sense from Google's perspective.
- hnriot 13y agoI wonder how long maps.google.com keeps classic mode. I loathe the new maps, it's sluggish and trying to be too much.
- hamburglar 13y agoYeah, I frequently find myself clicking back over to classic because I simply can't figure out how to do what I want in the new mode. When they take away my ability to do that, I'll groan and curse and increment my "reasons not to get excited about the Next Big Thing from Google" counter.
- bane 13y ago> it's sluggish and trying to be too much while amazingly providing less information
- jes5199 13y agoI don't know what you're talking about - can you show me screenshots of before and after?
- CedricGatay 13y agoHi there, I wanted to let you know the Android / Web application we made with a friend, it is called lclz.in (http://lclz.in http://lclz.in). We created it because the end of Google Latitude and the lack for such app. Lets explain it with a real use case, I want to meet my friend at an open air music festival with a lot of attendees. The classic way of doing it is calling him, but with the heavy music we will barely understand each other, plus it will be difficult to describe where we are to meet. That's where the application will help : you select the contact you want to meet, it sends a SMS (or use the share dialog) requesting its location. The text contains a link to a site allowing any decent smartphone (even iOS/Blackberry/Windows Phone) to geolocalize him. Once done, you will get a notification on your phone displaying him on a map ! That's the beginning of the app, we've got a full backlog of ideas for the upcoming releases. Meanwhile, feel free to install, use, and tell what you would have loved to see in it.
- swalsh 13y agoThere was a real use case for latitude, but I don't feel like they pulled it off right. I live in MA, and my brother lives in WI. We decided to meet each other in NY once while he was with friends. We used latitude as a way to communicate our location as we tried to find each other. It worked a lot better than saying "meet me at the shake shack" since neither of us knew the area. The problem with it though was it was slow, thus typically outdated. So 90% of the time the information was simply not useful.