Map Social iPhone app

Download MapSocial by clicking here

Ok, this is my first iPhone-Facebook app. Weeks ago while doing nothing @the beach, I thought how cool it´d be if I had a way to tell my friends to show up where I am.

Checking out the app store, I’ve found many apps that sends your location to others but somehow all these apps assume that all  your friends have a iphone and have installed the same app as you do.

So I decided to do it myself!

Its called “Map Social”

What it actually does is pretty simple: when you press the blue button, it notifies your position, along with a text message you previously wrote to ur whole bunch of friends @ facebook.

Your mapped location and your writing, will show up in your news feed stream. Meaning that a little static map with your position and your text will show up not only in your wall, but also in all your friends Home news feed. So this is THE way to tell your friends where you are.

Once your friend click on the map or in the link below, you will be redirected to the fully functional map, with zoom, addresses, satellite view, etc.

First time you use Map Social, will  prompt for your Facebook credentials for connect. When setting your username and password, remember to check “Keep me logged in” checkbox. That will keep you from having to log in every time you use it. After that, it will prompt you for your authorization to publish on your news stream feed, just like any other FB app.

Once you do it, you will never be prompted for FB credentials again, just to press the blue button or set your text message.

While playing with location, your iphone needs a while to locate you. The more accurate the measure, the more time & battery spent. If you check down the blue button, it will show you the actual accuracy. If there’s nothing there, that means that it has no location at all and wont notify anything. So wait before tapping the button, to see the accuracy indication down there.

The more you wait before tapping, the more accuracy it will get. So its your call how much accuracy you want. Remember that one of the main ways for your iphone to locate you is using gps satellites and it wont find em if you are indoors. For a precise location you need a clear view of the sky.

Anyway, normally you wont need 1 meter accuracy.

There’s something important to keep in mind: you may send all the notifications you want. You can send your location even every five minutes and annoy everyone. But no matter how many times you do it, we ONLY SHOW YOUR LAST LOCATION.

I’m not big brother (sister?), I do NOT keep your past location information, only the last one you notified. This is because of two reasons: one I try to keep my hosting costs low (as low as possible, there´s a crisis out there remember?). Two, I’m AGAINST any big brother policy. I appreciate my own privacy and try to preserve other’s.

In short, once you press the blue button, all your past notifications goes away. All records and images are deleted, which is good for you (u keep your privacy), is good for me (peace of mind.. and frees my allowed disk space).

Something like that happens with your Facebook login and password. I DO NOT KEEP YOUR CREDENTIALS in any database, even at your iphone. I just handle the session key. The FB login and authorization form, is at the FB api and Map Social never “sees” your login or password.

Finally, I know its obvious, but please DO NOT use this app for any kind of emergency or 911 kind of stuff. This is just for fun OK?

Cant wait to try Map Social? … you will need to keep waiting for a while more. I submitted mapMe to the app store and its on the approval process right now. Hope the guys at Apple be nice and hurry.

I’ll keep this blog updated.

keep smiling

Update 10/14/2009.

The app is finally in the appstore. You can download this great app by clicking here