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Google is retiring its Latitude location-sharing service on August 9th

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Re: Google is retiring its Latitude location-sharing service on August 9th

#11

Post by apa-sl »

What a surprise just in time as with my friends we have just published our simple location sharing app called TeleportMe :-). It's currently available for iPhone (update upcoming this week) and this month should be also released on Android.

Please visit http://TeleportMe.to if you are are looking for a super simple on foot navigation (just follow the arrow) with ability to save places (called teleports) and share them easily with your friends through text, email, facebook or twitter. Any comments are welcome. We will be also enabling users to use nice vanilla links to places such as http://TeleportMe.to/StarbucksGdynia

We planned to show it on HN after releasing Android and few updates as not all planned features are already there, but screw that

Re: Google is retiring its Latitude location-sharing service on August 9th

#12

Post by joshmlewis »

seanalex wrote: post #10

Surprisingly, this is the only Google service I did not want to go away. My wife and I use it frequently every work day. She is an animal control officer here in Houston, and Latitude is the way we keep in touch with where we are. The job is dangerous enough that I like to know her current location frequently just to make sure she is alright. She's on a windows 7 OS phone, I'm on an android... so a lot current-day ap…

Use Glympse, it's awesome and is compatible with a few different devices.

Re: Google is retiring its Latitude location-sharing service on August 9th

#14

Post by freehunter »

seanalex wrote: post #10

Surprisingly, this is the only Google service I did not want to go away. My wife and I use it frequently every work day. She is an animal control officer here in Houston, and Latitude is the way we keep in touch with where we are. The job is dangerous enough that I like to know her current location frequently just to make sure she is alright. She's on a windows 7 OS phone, I'm on an android... so a lot current-day ap…

Competition in the market is a great thing and I welcome more competitors, but you're exactly right. The entire mobile market is completely fragmented. Whether you use iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Blackberry, or any of the other competitors, you've likely experienced an app you'd love to install but it doesn't exist for your platform. Linux users are used to struggling with a developer to try to get a port when programs were made for Windows only. Now we're at the stage where many great programs are only written for half the market. At least on Linux you can use Wine for many things, or run a VM at worst.

When we made the move to mobile devices, we took a major step backwards in the maturity of technology. Some days I miss the simplicity of only having to pick between Windows Mobile and Palm OS when choosing a mobile audience.

Re: Google is retiring its Latitude location-sharing service on August 9th

#15

Post by skeletonjelly »

IlPeach wrote: post #9
scrrr wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, same here. But there's probably useful alternatives.

as..... ?

Only one I know of is Glympse https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.glympse.an...

Re: Google is retiring its Latitude location-sharing service on August 9th

#16

Post by skeletonjelly »

Another one of those people who uses it to track their spouse. Handy to find out where they are. Not in a creepy way, it just makes me feel more in tune and connected.

Tried out the G+ version just now, pretty shit in comparison. The feature set it pretty non existent, I can't take advantage of Maps' directions and there doesn't seem to be a way to pop their location out onto the main Maps app. Poor form Google :( At least make the replacing solution on par.

Re: Google is retiring its Latitude location-sharing service on August 9th

#17

Post by seanalex »

joshmlewis wrote: post #12
seanalex wrote: post #10

Surprisingly, this is the only Google service I did not want to go away. My wife and I use it frequently every work day. She is an animal control officer here in Houston, and Latitude is the way we keep in touch with where we are. The job is dangerous enough that I like to know her current location frequently just to make sure she is alright. She's on a windows 7 OS phone, I'm on an android... so a lot current-day ap…

Use Glympse, it's awesome and is compatible with a few different devices.

Great, thanks for the suggestion. I'll set us up on it tonight and see how it works.

Re: Google is retiring its Latitude location-sharing service on August 9th

#18

Post by gioele »

freehunter wrote: post #14
seanalex wrote: post #10

Surprisingly, this is the only Google service I did not want to go away. My wife and I use it frequently every work day. She is an animal control officer here in Houston, and Latitude is the way we keep in touch with where we are. The job is dangerous enough that I like to know her current location frequently just to make sure she is alright. She's on a windows 7 OS phone, I'm on an android... so a lot current-day ap…

Competition in the market is a great thing and I welcome more competitors, but you're exactly right. The entire mobile market is completely fragmented. Whether you use iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Blackberry, or any of the other competitors, you've likely experienced an app you'd love to install but it doesn't exist for your platform. Linux users are used to struggling with a developer to try to get a port when progr…

> Whether you use iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Blackberry, or any of the other competitors, you've likely experienced an app you'd love to install but it doesn't exist for your platform. Linux users are used to struggling with a developer to try to get a port when programs were made for Windows only.

Try being a Linux user on a PowerPC box.

I hope developers, most of which have become mobile developers by now, have now understood that open protocols are much more important than application availability.

Re: Google is retiring its Latitude location-sharing service on August 9th

#19

Post by brazzy »

danleech wrote: post #7
sssparkkk wrote: post #2

Somewhat understandable, but that doesn't mean I don't hate the fact this has been 'moved' to Google+ now. I'm afraid a lot of my friends won't take the time to set this up in the (bloated, compared to maps) Google+ app. And when you think about it, why shouldn't the location of your friends not be just another layer in the maps app? Seems like a logical place to be able to find this kind of information.

I completely agree. Google+ was meant to enhance all of Google’s products, adding social features. What Google seem to be doing is the opposite.

Google+ is first and foremost meant to be a serious competitor to Facebook, but hasn't been able to overcome Facebooks gigantic lead in the network effects.

But Google really, really wants to break into that market. Now what's happening is simply that they're sacrificing their less profitable services in order to force people to start using Google+, in an attempt to get over that network effect threshold.

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