Google Maps for Mobile – Now with My Location
I just installed the new 2.0 beta of Google Maps for Mobile (GMM). This has a cool new feature called ‘My Location’. If, like me, your phone doesn’t have a built in GPS, GMM uses the signals from the mobile phone system towers to triangulate you coordinates.
I downloaded the app via the browser on my Blackberry. It knew I had version 1.6 and asked me if overwriting was ok. No problems.
Once I ran the program it showed my location as about 3 streets over from where I actually am. There is a dark blue dot showing the center of where it thinks you are followed by a light blue circle for the area you could be. GPS users will get an accurate location.
You can then get directions and GMM will ask if you want to use your My Location as the starting point. For non-GPSers that isn’t really that helpful unless you kind of know the area and realize that it might be starting you from 3 streets away from were you physically are.
I did try a search of Pizza and it gave me a cool list of all the pizza places and Italian restaurants. I could call the number right from the list or display all the pins on the map and get directions if I wanted.
This video explains it all nicely:
How much does Google pay for the locator info?
I wonder how much Google has to pay for that location info, because it’s not free. In Germany the mobile operators charge €0.10 from third parties for every localization. In Berlin we have Qiro which does quite the same, but more advanced. You can lo…