What is it?
Friends Place is an application suite - complete with Blackberry app, Android app and web server. it's designed to provide an easy and simple way to share your location with family and friends:
Via the app you can invite friends to view your location. You can view your friends location via either the app or via web browser.
Who is it for?
Anyone with Blackberry or Android phone interested in sharing their location with family and friends. You can also track your phone if it's lost / stolen and the Friends Place app still running. Friends with no phone can view your location via the website.
How does it work?
Instilling the app - Download and install Friends Place app from Blackberry World.
Starting the app - Just click the Friends Place icon to start the app. Depends on your device type and settings, it may take few seconds for the app to load for the first time.
Selecting an account - You need to have a Gmail account on your device to be able to use this app. If you have more then one Gmail accounts on the device, click "select account" and enter a name and the Gmail address you want to use. The account name and email address will show on top of the app's main screen.
Inviting friends - Click on the friends button - that's the person icon in the top middle - then click select friends. The app will show you a list of friends you can choose from. These are retrieved from the Gmail contacts you have on your phone. Note that only contacts with phone numbers will be shown! Thus, if you want to add a contact but it does not show up, exit the app, go to Contacts on your phone, find this contact and add a phone number. Any number will do.
Once you selected friends, click "start sharing" - that's it! Your friends can now see your location. For your friends an family to see your location, they may do one of the following -
- Download this app, start it, select the Gmail account you used to invite them, click the map icon. Once the map is loaded, they can locate your icon on top, and click on it to track your location
- Alternatively, login to Friends Place website using the Gmail account you invited them with - they will need to use their normal Gmail username and password to login. Next the map will load, they can locate your icon on the left side and click on it to track your location.
Locating friends on the map - once one or more friends added you, you can view their current location on the map, by clicking the map icon on top:
Where is the website?
On any browser - either on phone or PC/MAC/etc -
Go to Friends Place
Comments..
1) If you really want to use the Friend's website map from your BB, use browser called "safe browser" .. seems to work best.. the stock one crashes..
2) The double blue circle on the map is your own location. To go there at any time click the GPS sign at the bottom right of the screen. If you click it and nothing happens - you probably did not allow location services. Go to your phone settings and allow location services
3) If you cannot find a contact in Friends "select friends" list - go to your phone's "contacts", make sure you it shows there, and make sure it has phone number. If it is not there, login to Gmail account on your PC and add this contact to your Gmail account, then synch your phone account with Gmail again.
4) Note that the client-server communication in this app is encrypted, and the server is secured, so there is no chance of information leak regarding the device, its owner, location etc.