[maemo-developers] Google Latitude

[From: Simon Pickering]

Hi all,

Though this is probably more of a -users subject, I thought some testing
might be worthwhile to begin with, plus I'd hate to have to actually pay
attention to the -users list ;)

I've been wondering about Google Latitude for a while now (ever since we
were at the summit and trying to meet up in the same pub in a place were we
didn't know the geography and couldn't pronounce the street names).

Anyway, this seems to work to some extent:

Install the maemo-geolocation plugin for the browser;

In the browser open
"www.google.co.uk/maps/m?view=data&mode=latitude&source=mog&gl=uk" which is
the page the iPhone opens. There doesn't seem to be a check on the useragent
(except if you try to open google.co.uk directly).

I guess it will be something similar for you guys in the US, a combination
of desktop Firefox + "User Agent Switcher" + tcpdump should tell you exactly
if you can't work it out by guessing.

Then click away and use the (web)app.

Not sure how location updates work, whether they are handled automatically
or not, something to be tested. It also might be a better bet to work out
the protocol the Google maps Latitude page uses to avoid the overhead of
having the browser running all the time. But I don't know, it might be ok
powerwise - anyone thoughts?

Cheers,


Simon