MapMe Application

About MapMe

Once upon a time (it was 2009, to be precise), Google Latitude (real time friend location on a map) actually worked quite well, even on Symbian OS, except for relatively quickly draining the smartphone battery. I liked the original app and thought it was kind of cool to be able to track (the mutually approved) friends location on the map in real time, which really helped in situations when you are expecting guests and want to see where they are at, and estimate how soon they will reach your location, without having to call each other multiple times to report on that.

Then Nokia practically abandoned Symbian, while Google started doing some weird changes to Latitude (officially making it better), gradually making it pretty useless even on Android phone.

Then Google renamed the Latitude into Locations and put it under Google+. Ok, we would not mind it as long as it delivered. But it did not.

I was patient for a while, believing that Google (based on its track record) would fix the Latitude soon and that we would be able again to see each other's location in real time soon. But it just didn't happen. What use do you have if Latitude updates one's location once in about 30 or 40 minutes? I think I even sent them a feedback, at least once, suggesting them to add some option that user could use to balance between the location update period and battery drainage. But, nothing happened.

In Summer 2014, I finally got tired of Google not fixing its Locations app, I wowed that I would have to make one such app with my students at school. I knew I could manage the real-time geo-location part because we have already implemented it in one prior app. I just had to come up with an idea for the whole application with sufficient number of useful features.

So, I came up with the idea for the MapMe by Circle application! I envision it and oversaw the development and one of my talented students coded it! The development was guaranteed!

MapMe by Circle Features

I wanted to have:

• • spam-safe befriending of users (with a simple approval process)

  • flexible map with a circle which filters the friends within a user-desired radius, but also having the option to see all his/her friends worldwide and locate them instantly

  • freedom to choose how frequently his/her own location to be sent to others, and how frequently the locations of the others to be received

  • with additional features that my student added such as options to call or send an SMS to the particular friend whose marker with tapped on, MapMe just delivers, in my opinion, subject to continuous debugging and improvements in the code as well as adding new attractive features.

We managed to embed those features in MapMe by Circle functionality and we keep improving it.

MapMe is currently developed for Android 4.x OS only.

MapMe by Circle Download

MapMe by Circle is currently shared for testing with select participants. The download for the public will follow soon.

To help us improve it faster, please take a moment to submit your feedback about your user experience with MapMe, using this online form.

Thank you for your interest and support!