Find My Friends Now on iCloud.com
Along with other updates last week, Apple added a Web-based version of its Find My Friends app to iCloud.com. Just like its iOS counterpart, the Web-based version of Find My Friends displays where all of your friends are on a map, assuming they’ve agreed to let you view their locations.
The LAST thing I would want is for people to know where I am all the time. Who wants that?? Are you nuts??!!
Not everyone, certainly, but lots of people do like sharing location. For instance, I very much want to know where Tonya is when she's out on a long bike ride, and she very much wants me to know as well in case of an accident (and vice versa). And we want to know where our 16-year-old son is so we can better figure out when he'll need a ride after returning from a cross-country meet, and he wants to know where we are so he can tell that we're on our way, if something prevents us from picking him up right when we said we would.
We also use it in temporary situations as well. We drove down to speak at a conference in Baltimore last week, and we shared our location with the organizer during the drive so he would have a way to tell where we were, if we hadn't shown up when he expected we would. And on a vacation with our extended family last year, location sharing was useful on several occasions as different smaller groups of us met up for collective meals at random restaurants.
All this could be coordinated by text message or phone call, but that's often inefficient and inaccurate, since you may not know exactly where you are, how to provide directions there, or how long it will take you to get from where you are to some other location. With location sharing, other people can bring their knowledge or skills to bear in answering those questions.
It was also super handy at Macworld last year. We were all able to assemble in the mornings without having to coordinate a meeting spot. We all left our hotels in the morning and walked to each others' locations.
Thank you, Adam and Josh, for giving me a heads-up about how this feature can be used practically.