Recently Implemented Ideas for Google Mobile: Latitude and Tasks

Thursday, February 5, 2009 | 11:19 AM

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When we launched Product Ideas, we asked you to submit your best ideas for Google Mobile. Lana from New York, NY, said she wanted to "see my friends on maps on my phone," and over 1,200 of you agreed. We've had many other great ideas come from mobile enthusiasts across the world.

Your feedback is important as we work on new products and features, and with almost 3,000 ideas posted, we thought it about time to update you on some of the latest Google projects so that you can keep dreaming up and voting on new ideas that we haven't already implemented!

This week, we're happy to introduce two great new features, each for a different mobile product. Read on to find out more about sharing your location via Google Maps or keeping track of your to-do list with Gmail Tasks.

Product: Google Maps for mobile
New Feature: Latitude

Latitude is a new social feature that helps you locate your friends using a mobile device. By opting in to Latitude and having your friends share their location with you, you can see their whereabouts on Maps and contact them via SMS, Gmail, or Google Talk. You can even keep them updated by changing your status message. Check it out by going to
http://www.google.com/latitude

Announcement: Official Google Blog

Related Ideas:

"i want to be able to see my friends on maps on my phone"
Lana, New York, NY

"Have my friends location on my map, with their GPS phone information."
rodleon, Santiago, Chile

"Social features that allow me to easily see where my friends are & other location based events (eg. the restaraunt promotion, or special club event.) It should include the ability to map them and quickly add them to your to-do/ calender for reminders"
TimBaileysBox, McLean, VA

"Use the iPhone Google Map to locate your friends, who happen to be carrying the iPhone."
GoogleMan

"A "Friend Finder" tied to google talk and GPS. Allows two people with mobile phones to send eachother positional updates so they can find each other in a busy store, theme park, etc."
Bryan, Marietta, GA

"Overhaul Google Maps to have voice turn directions with a 3D view. Also add social networking features like sharing directions and a friend locator (that can be turned on/off), and a recommend this place feature."
Map, Sacramento, CA

"GPS should provide what bluetooth tried and couldn't: a "find me" alert to locate people near you and that ACTUALLY want 2 be discovered and change instant messages. I'd love to chit chat while in queues or find by chance a friend who's at the mall!"
Ukyo, PE, Brazil

"Let google know my location constantly from a GPS device (accuracy determined by my paranoia) to let friends know if they are close to me *and* where I was at any point in the past."
JP, Nottingham, UK

"Provided an enhanced version of gmail contacts . The new contact list will indicate the real-time physical location of any contact who wants to share his/her location with friends."
B.Hu, Sunnyvale, CA

"a product that will ping my friends/contact list with my geo-location and get a response on their geo-location/connectivity status with present/past overlay on gEarth."
gink, Cape Town, South Africa

"A mobile app that seeks/finds using GPS and alerts you when others in your Google Friend Connect Community are close by. You would be able to turn off the feature when you don't want others in your Friend Connect Community to know you are around."
Googleguy, SoCal

Product: Gmail for mobile
New Feature: Tasks

Tasks lets you manage your to-do list while you're on the go. You can create lists of things you need to get done and check off tasks as they're completed.
If you have a supported device, just go to http://gmail.com/tasks in your phone's web browser to access Tasks. And mark that done.

Announcement: Google Mobile Blog

Related Ideas:

"Ability to view and edit gmail's tasks"
kally, minnesota

"Task list that I can update on a mobile device."
Grant, Cambridge, MA

"Ability to use the new gmail lab's TASKS feature."
Drooo, NY


Keep posting and voting on those ideas - they could be the seed of the next great feature. Your feedback is important to us and we can't wait to see what you come up with next!

by The Product Ideas Team

22 comments:

Pavlo Sidelov said...

Do you plan use LBS (Local Based Stations) for positioning user device on google maps?

Unknown said...

Now we just need it to sync with built-in task program on BlackBerry

TOMHTML said...

Thank you for listening to users, finally!

james said...

I would love a public setting for latitude. Please let me network with others that are in the library or coffee shop I am in... not just my "friends". Would be super swanky if you could hide my addresses in "public" view but still allow interacting.
cheers.

Inchka said...

Well done and thank you. But why do you only restrict this to mobile users? My PC (and a lot of others) has a built in GPS card and I would have expected Latitudes to work with it to Set my location automatically.

Unknown said...

Could it be possible to sync Tasks with my windows mobile smartphone? just as it is now possible to do so with my google calender events.

Unknown said...

It's a start - now just have it sync with Blackberry's native Tasks :)

Dianna said...

It'd be nice for it to be an app on the android phone instead of having to use the web. That way I can use it when I don't have an internet connection.

♥ Southern Simplicity said...

Blackberry really needs the task app... having to use a browser is just not user-friendly enough.

Unknown said...

I would like to make my location public from time to time (when I make my sail trips) and to implement this as a map gadget into my homepage. So everybody can follow my ship online, not only the logged in iGoogle users.

niroyb said...

Movie schedules in Google Maps

It would be great if you could add movie schedules search in google maps. If you search "cinema Avatar 3D New York", it would show all cinemas in NY with Avatar in 3D. when you put your mouse over a cinema, you get the schedule for that movie at that cinema.
As an added bonus, you get trends from your users and can target adds from cinemas when you get that query so this service would pay itself out.

Please keep me informed of future developments

Nick

Unknown said...

I was a long time user of VZ Navigator, now as a Droid owner I have had to switch to Google Maps.I see that it's still Beta and expect things to continue to improve, but let me give you my biggest complaint so far.... The Voice. Wow, that robot voice is the worst! Please give me different voice options and have some real life speaking.

Tim Ryan said...

I would like to ba able to organize my tasks by due date on the mobile app. This seems like a really simple one to implement.

Unknown said...

A couple ideas.

One, can we link latitude contacts to our phonebook contacts? It appears that I am unable to send texts/call some of my latitude contacts, despite that informationg being listed in my phonebook.

Two, would there be a way to view friend's locations via their information in phonebook? For instance if I click on "Tom" from my phonebook, I would like it to list his location/proximity under his email/info/etc.

Three, I have an HTC Incredible, and currently have the widget on one of my home screens. I would liek to first be able to select which contacts show on the widget, rather than just 2 random ones (which is what seems to be happening now). I would also like a button on the widget that would allow me to directly access my friends list, rather than going to the map, then in the bottom left selecting the friends list icon.

Thanks!

Ивайло Георгиев said...

Great work!
Please add IM over GTalk or e-mail.

Unknown said...

It would be good for Latitude to show location coordinates e.g. longitude and latitude or British OS coordinates, on the phone and on the website (like Viewranger)

Also for emailing someone, being able to choose a person from the phonebook would be better

Joji said...

THE MAIN PROBLEM WITH THE GOOGLE MAPS NAVIGATION IS THAT IT DOESNT WORK FOR SYMBIAN MOBILES..since it is one of the most used platforms around the world, i still wonder why google is taking so long to put that feature for s60 phones as they did for their android o.s...

Unknown said...

My biggest deal breaker for using Google maps when I travel is the cost of inernational roaming data, here in the UK they tear us u in charges when we go to Europe! Recent trips to France, Budapest, Bruges, have required theuse of Co Pilot because the maps are in the phone. PLEASE can you look at a way to help me when I get my new Negus Android phone so that I can download map data for the region I am driving in before I leave the UK....16GB of storage should give me all I need ! Oh and if it had a downloadable database of speed cameras in that area as a favorite spot to avoid ! It would be very nice.

Unknown said...

Google maps should have a turn by turn navigation with audio. Competitors like Mapquest have it but the map isn't clear.. This is the only thing google maps is missing.. Everything else is great

wfox said...

In Latitude you can check in in public places as well as some private places like home and work.

I suggest you could add and manage more private places customizable by the user, such as Parents place, Lake house, London's apartment, Summer apartment, maybe also some other Work places if you have more than one job.

Another suggestion: possibility to ping a user just to update their location, with no need to open the Check in option.

wfox said...

Suggestion: Latitude and tasks working together like ePythia, so you can get notifications when you arrive to a place where you should do one of your tasks.

Unknown said...

Using GPS location a yet to be invented mobile app just simply displays a mobile website of the business where you are standing.
So if I walk into central station and turn on the app, the Amtrack website will appear, I can book tickets, pay, view offers...
I'm in McDonalds now, switch the app on and see if there are offers/vouchers or pay with phone and just collect.
With just one app it can deliver millions of business websites by matching your exact location to the business website.
The app can be monitized in 3 ways,
1.the local business can pay to excude banner adds,
2.pay to show website in neutral space, footpath or road just outside the buisiness premises so if I'm on a train in NY the app will show a seqance of local businesses special offers a few meters away
3.show banner ads of competitors if a business decides not to pay to exclude sponsored ads.
Basically the app is a database of location co-ordinates matched with the business website on that spot.