Where Is Everybody?
How To Find Where Your Friends Are
Long before Apple decided to add location sharing right in the Messages App, I was looking for easier ways to share your location with your friends. At the time, I was working on an app that would make it easier in a number of ways. As I update this app and make it increasingly robust and user friendly, I’m going to review current options for location sharing and comment on them. But first…
Why
Does anyone care where you are? Do you want to know where anyone is? I originaly made this app out of neccessity. I live in a house with 6 of my friends, but I often found myself on a week night alone in the living room. I wanted a quick way to figure out who was home and who was not. There was nothing out there to service that need. My best option was to text everyone (either individually or as a group), and await responses. Even if everyone responded, often their replies were far from helpful. Here is an example conversation:
Me: “Hey where are you?”
David: “Studying”
Me: “Where?”
David: “The Library”
Me: “Which one?”
David: “The Graduate Library”
This is extremely frustrating becuase intervals betwen texts could be several minutes, which adds up to about 10 minutes and 6 texts just to figure out something as simple as their location. In the age of GPS and fast internet connection, shouldn’t this be as simple as the click of a button?
Option 1: Share Location Through Messages App
Sharing your location through the messages app is simple and easy, although safrifices functionality in the process. Here’s a quick walkthrough of the process:
First, from your message page, select “Details.”
You are then given the options to “Send My Current Location” and “Share My Location”.
This is immediately confusing, because they seem like the same thing, the only difference being “send/share” and the presence or absence of “current”.
So “Send My Current Location” adds an instance of your coordinates to the conversation.
The person (or persons, as this works just as well with a group conversation), can press anywhere on the map to bring up a full screen version.
Of course, this only shows where you were when you hit “Send My Current Location”, so if you move, it does not update
In the full screen view you can zoom in and out on the other persons location.
What immediately stands out to me is that you are not shown on the map. They could be a mile away or 1000 miles away, and you would only know what street they’re on.
Unless of course, you hit another button “Directions To Here” which brings up this location in Apple Maps, and you can do anything that one normally can in that App.
If instead of “Send My Current Location” you select “Share My Location” you are prompted with multiple options for how long you want to allow someone to know where you are.
As opposed to only sharing where you are at the moment, you can share where you are, updated as you move, for as short as an hour or as long as “Indefinitely” (the option to cancel location sharing appears on the “Details” page as soon as you begin “sharing”).
Conclusions
The unsurprising simplicity of location sharing is apparent immediately. If already in the Messages App, it is also quite convenient. In a sense, it is also secure since you do not have to “trust” a third party with your location data. Location sharing in the Messages App is easy to use and reliable, despite limited functionality.
Problems
Here are some problems I see with this feature that I hope to resolve in AnchorUp:
- There are several buttons and views that add confusion
- You have to already have a conversation going to share location
- After “sending” location, your coordinates are available in the conversation for ever (unless you delete it)
- There are relatively few options for how long you can “share” your location
- You cannot see yourself on the map (if someone has shared their location with you)
- There is no way to request someone’s (or multiple people’s) location
