I find myself often texting people, "where are you?" so I wrote this little iPhone app that lets me text them a special link. When they click the link, it uses the HTML5 geolocation API to report their location and shows it on a map.<p>http://whru.at/<p>It's only as accurate as the HTML5 geolocation API, but I've been finding it pretty useful. What do you think?
Very clever! I think this is a great idea. There's a startup here in the Seattle area (<a href="http://www.glympse.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.glympse.com/</a>) that's doing something similar, but—frankly—I think I feel a lot more comfortable with your model, especially since I think usage is a lot more likely (and abuse far less likely) in a 'pull' scenario like this one.<p>Good job!<p>Also, I have some 'constructive' feedback. Please note that I really do think your app is cool, and I'm only trying to help you make it better:<p>- whru.at should give me the option of typing in my location, or manually locating myself on the map.<p>- whru.at and Space-time are very different names. Which one do you want to use? (personally I like the 'texty' domain name better)<p>- It looks like you're using Titanium or something similar to build the UI. Kill this, and move to Objective C. The selection highlights on your table view are weird.<p>- Please only use system fonts.<p>- Only use pull to refresh or a refresh button, and not both.<p>- The color scheme seems to be all over the place: black, white, orange, blue, gray... Check out appdesignvault.com, or other similar resources for pre-built iOS app themes.
Hey Aaron,<p>I built a POC site a long time ago called FindFacetime (before Apple started using the Facetime name) that was focused on geolocation within a person's forage area, then connected the space on that person's forage map to their available time.<p>The goal was to find facetime, or spacetime, or the portmanteau (sfacetime) or (spfacetime).<p>Facebook optimizes on screentime. What service exists to match calendars and offer you a menu of possible options for real-world facetime? Noonhat was the last most interesting entry I saw (and part of the inspiration for Find Facetime), if only there were user account management, and I could invite all my friends to sign-up, and optionally invite strangers.<p>I hope someone out there runs on this idea and builds a free site that outcompetes Facebook on connecting me face-to-face with my friends, helping us match up our respective forage areas or radii and black out all but our mutually available time blocks.<p>I'd be happy to invest in the business myself.
I really like the ping-pong model here and I think it's the only one acceptable by the privacy concerned masses. I hope I'll remember to use the app every time I'll be curious where ppl are. All I'd wished for is auto refresh.
If the purpose of texting "where are you?" is null:
This is an excellent way to find out the location of your friend(s) without them giving much effort.<p>If the purpose of texting "where are you?" is to meet up:
Sure, bearing in mind that your friends will eventually need to call/text each other to confirm that they are going to meet in front of some building.
In addition to Latitude, the built-in "Find your Friends" seems to already do this, without the user needing to explicitly provide consent every time after the first.<p>You should clearly state why your app is better.<p>Also, I know this is hard to do on iOS, but it would really be nice if it could use Google Voice, or email/gmail, or some method other than texting. A lot of people still don't have unlimited SMS plans.
Very cool. FYI, there's a startup in Portland (<a href="https://geoloqi.com/" rel="nofollow">https://geoloqi.com/</a>) that lets you do the same in reverse - you can send a link to your friends and show them your location; the link automatically expires after a set time.
old trick - Where Are You Now: <a href="http://servletsuite.blogspot.com/2010/10/where-are-you-now.html" rel="nofollow">http://servletsuite.blogspot.com/2010/10/where-are-you-now.h...</a>
Send link to Geo Mail
Awesome - I've just used it with a few buddies and love the simplicity! My only concern is that I'll have to send an additional msg to new friends to get them to click on the link as the msg sent via the app may seem a bit spammy. I wonder if you can somehow solve that.