Photo: androidpolice.com
Location sharing is one underestimated feature of Google Maps, as it allows someone to let you know where they are at any given moment.
The live location sharing comes in handy whenever you want to follow someone on the map, a feature that only works as long as the contact gives their permission for you to see their location.
In other words, as long as someone lets you see where they are, you can just open Google Maps and view their position in real time. You can do that without the need for any other apps (as a quick hint, WhatsApp also allows users to share their live location with contacts, all with pretty much the same goal in mind).
And now Google’s taking the whole thing to a new level, as it allows users to turn to Google Assistant to see where someone they’ve been allowed to track currently is, and everything works with just a voice command.
In other words, a quick question for Google Assistant is all you need to find out the location of one of your contacts, of course, as long as they’ve previously shared such information for you.
Google now displays a short tip on Android devices where this feature has been enabled, suggesting that you can ask Google Assistant to tell you where someone currently is. “Where is [name of the contact]?” is the question that you can use for this feature, so in theory, you may not even have to touch your phone to be aware of someone’s location in real time.
Obviously, this feature can also be turned off, but on the other hand, it brings location sharing to a completely new level, making it so easy to become a little stalker, obviously with good intentions.
However, for the time being, it looks like this feature is gradually rolling out to users out there, and most likely, it’s all powered by a server-side switch, not by a new Google Maps update.
In other words, as long as someone lets you see where they are, you can just open Google Maps and view their position in real time. You can do that without the need for any other apps (as a quick hint, WhatsApp also allows users to share their live location with contacts, all with pretty much the same goal in mind).
And now Google’s taking the whole thing to a new level, as it allows users to turn to Google Assistant to see where someone they’ve been allowed to track currently is, and everything works with just a voice command.
In other words, a quick question for Google Assistant is all you need to find out the location of one of your contacts, of course, as long as they’ve previously shared such information for you.
Google now displays a short tip on Android devices where this feature has been enabled, suggesting that you can ask Google Assistant to tell you where someone currently is. “Where is [name of the contact]?” is the question that you can use for this feature, so in theory, you may not even have to touch your phone to be aware of someone’s location in real time.
Obviously, this feature can also be turned off, but on the other hand, it brings location sharing to a completely new level, making it so easy to become a little stalker, obviously with good intentions.
However, for the time being, it looks like this feature is gradually rolling out to users out there, and most likely, it’s all powered by a server-side switch, not by a new Google Maps update.
Google News