This is what I love about smartphones. Someone stole my wife's Droid about a week after she got it, so I checked out her location on Latitude. Fortunately, she left the gps on and the guy decided to check out google maps, thus activating the gps. I got a couple friends and we knocked on his trailer park door and he obligingly returned the phone in haste. Though it took another visit 10 minutes later to get the sd card back.
I guess the moral is don't steal things that are smarter than you.
@freefx Turning Latitude on on my Nokia N96...setting to auto update every 6 hours. Setting to auto start when the phone is turned on...cheers for the tip. Would never have thought to use it in this way.
@Johnny Rockets To save power, the gps on the Droid (and others I assume) is only active when an app is using it. So even if GPS is turned on in settings, it doesn't get a position fix until it is requested by an app. Latitude uses the best location it has available, and if the GPS isn't being actively used by another program, it will update based off cell tower locations. The update frequency of Latitude is determined by your usage. If the phone is just sitting there it updates every 45-60 minutes using cell towers, but if you are using maps or navigation it updates much more frequently using GPS. There is no option to change the update frequency.
I wouldn't rely on Latitude to recover your phone because it doesn't return a gps fix unless the user opens an app the activates the gps. Both my Droid and my wife's now have the Where's my Droid? app where you can send a text message and it activates the GPS, waits for a fix, and then returns the coordinates.
Fortunately for my wife, Latitude came through and she got her phone back after just 6 hours.
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This is what I love about smartphones. Someone stole my wife's Droid about a week after she got it, so I checked out her location on Latitude. Fortunately, she left the gps on and the guy decided to check out google maps, thus activating the gps. I got a couple friends and we knocked on his trailer park door and he obligingly returned the phone in haste. Though it took another visit 10 minutes later to get the sd card back.
I guess the moral is don't steal things that are smarter than you.
@freefx
"I guess the moral is don't steal things that are smarter than you."
SO TRUE
@freefx That's an insane story... = )
@freefx
Turning Latitude on on my Nokia N96...setting to auto update every 6 hours. Setting to auto start when the phone is turned on...cheers for the tip. Would never have thought to use it in this way.
@freefx
Is there any way to get Latitude to auto-update every so often? Or is that not possible, unless you start Maps etc?
I've tried GPS Tracker / Instamapper, but just wondering if Latitude can do the same thing.
@Johnny Rockets To save power, the gps on the Droid (and others I assume) is only active when an app is using it. So even if GPS is turned on in settings, it doesn't get a position fix until it is requested by an app. Latitude uses the best location it has available, and if the GPS isn't being actively used by another program, it will update based off cell tower locations. The update frequency of Latitude is determined by your usage. If the phone is just sitting there it updates every 45-60 minutes using cell towers, but if you are using maps or navigation it updates much more frequently using GPS. There is no option to change the update frequency.
I wouldn't rely on Latitude to recover your phone because it doesn't return a gps fix unless the user opens an app the activates the gps. Both my Droid and my wife's now have the Where's my Droid? app where you can send a text message and it activates the GPS, waits for a fix, and then returns the coordinates.
Fortunately for my wife, Latitude came through and she got her phone back after just 6 hours.