Way back in November 2007, we location-enabled all of our Google Maps for mobile clients to bring location awareness to the masses and improve the local search experience. Using My Location, millions of you have been able to easily find yourselves on a map at the touch of a button. But what about finding other people? Lots of you have been requesting to see where your friends are on a map, too. Well now you can with Google Latitude.

Latitude is a new feature of Google Maps for mobile, as well as an iGoogle gadget, that allows you to share your location with your friends and to see their approximate locations, if they choose to share them with you. You can use your Google account to sign in and easily invite friends to Latitude from your existing list of contacts or by entering their email addresses. Google Talk is integrated with Latitude, so you and your friends can update your status messages and profile photos on the go and see what everyone is up to. You can also call, SMS, IM, or email each other within the app. Check out the video below to see Latitude in action.

We've gone to great lengths to put this on as many smartphone devices as possible from day one so that most of the people you know will be able to use Latitude right away. There are two primary ways to use Latitude right now:

1. On your mobile phone: visit google.com/latitude from your phone's mobile browser to download Google Maps for mobile with Latitude. We currently support most of the popular smartphone platforms: Android, Blackberry, Symbian S60, and Windows Mobile, and we are hoping to see Latitude on the iPhone soon. It will be available through Google Mobile App, and you'll just need to download or update the app from the App store to find Latitude in the Apps tab.
2. On your computer: go to http://google.com/latitude from your browser and add the Latitude gadget to your iGoogle homepage. What's neat is that if you've installed Google Gears or if you're using Google Chrome, you can choose to automatically share your location from your laptop or desktop computer -- no smartphone required!

Latitude gives you control over how much or little location information you want to share, and with whom. And of course Latitude is 100% opt-in. Learn more about using Latitude and its privacy features in our Help Center or check out our privacy video.

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention - it is available in 27 countries and 42 languages. See in which part of the world your friends are now!

Posted by Charles Mendis, Software Engineer, Google mobile team

Don't want to type a long query, like "U.S. economic stimulus plan", on your T-Mobile G1? Just say it. Or, perhaps you'd like to browse the web without sliding out the keyboard? Well now you can. For those of you with a G1 in the US, the next time you get an Android update (which will gradually roll out starting this week), you'll be able to start searching -- and surfing -- with your voice. And you can use the feature quickly and easily because it's integrated in the Android browser and the home screen search widget.

You can start searching by voice with just the touch of a button. On the home screen search widget, look for the microphone button right next to the search box and the search button. Press that button, wait for the "Speak now" prompt, and then say your query. You'll soon see search results formatted for the Android browser.

Also, whenever you're in the Android browser, just press the "Menu" button and tap "Search". You'll see the same microphone button there too.

This makes doing successive voice-triggered searches -- and mobile web surfing -- easy and fast. Try speaking your favorite web sites, then tapping on the top search results to get to them.

Note that you can use the "Voice Dialer" app, which you can find on the main app menu, to search for your contacts with your voice to make a call. Or, simply long-press the green call button and follow the prompts on the splash screen.

Finally, if your speech is not interpreted correctly, try tapping the down arrow to the right of the search box and you'll see a drop down list of other suggested queries. Look for your query there. In the meantime, we're constantly working to improve our algorithms, so stay tuned for future improvements.

Posted by Jeff Hamilton, Software Engineer, Android team

A couple months ago, Tasks launched in Gmail Labs. Tasks lets you easily create and manage to-do lists right in Gmail. Now, you can access and manage your task lists from your phone, too. Just go to gmail.com/tasks in your mobile browser and log in. If you have a Google Apps account, you can go to mail.google.com/tasks/a/your-domain, replacing your-domain with your actual domain name.

On most phones, you can view tasks, add tasks, and mark them as completed. The changes are automatically reflected in Gmail. If you have an iPhone or an Android-powered device, you can also add, edit, and delete entire lists as well.

Tasks for mobile is currently available in English (like the rest of Gmail Labs). Read more on the Gmail blog and check out the video below.



Posted by Lawrence Chang, Product Marketing Manager, Google mobile team

New York City Mayor Bloomberg just announced on the Official Google Blog that the city has partnered with Google to create www.nycgo.com and a brand new Official NYC Information Center, located at 810 7th Avenue. On the mobile team, we're particularly excited by how New York City is helping visitors navigate the city by integrating Google Maps for mobile into the experience.

It's easy to plan a trip at home and then use your phone to navigate the city. You can browse www.nycgo.com to find a hotel, restaurants, and things to do in New York. Most web pages embed Google Maps, and using a nifty "send to phone" feature, you can send locations to your phone via text message. Later on, when you're out and about in the city, click the link in the text message to view a map, get directions, and see Street View. Don't forget that you can now get New York City subway routes on your iPhone, BlackBerry, or other smartphone!

Check out the video below to see how things work:


Next time you're out and about in New York City, use Google Maps for mobile to search for places and get directions. If you don't already have Google Maps on your phone, download it by visiting google.com/gmm on your cell phone's browser.

Posted by Ryan Pollock, Product Marketing Manager

Last week the Google Mobile team joined Googlers from the Geo, YouTube and Mac teams at the 2009 Macworld Expo at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. This year, the Google booth featured fun giveaways, a YouTube upload booth, an Earth Surfer, and an iPhone charging station. Check out some pictures from the Google booth:



Along with demoing mobile products for the iPhone and iPod touch, we also shared the secret behind the hidden options in the Google Mobile App. If you didn't get a chance to stop by the booth at Macworld and haven't discovered the secret, you can get some hints from bloggers, tech sites, or vloggers.

We hope you enjoy the Bells and Whistles! Also, we wanted to give a big thanks to our users and the Mac Observer which gave the Google Mobile App the 2009 Editor's Choice Award!

Posted by Linda Tong, Product Marketing

One of my favorite things about Google Maps for mobile is finding businesses on the go. Today we launched a server-side change that makes it easier to get directions to businesses. You can now get directions to restaurants, stores, and other points of interest by entering their names in the start or end point. Consider this example:


Until today, if you tried to get directions and entered a business name, "starbucks" for example, as the end or start point, Google Maps for mobile did not understand that you meant Starbucks the business. Rather, Google Maps for mobile would search for an address with "starbucks" in it.

Google Maps for mobile now recognizes when your end or start point is a business and not an address. Try setting "starbucks" or "mcdonald's" as an end point when getting directions, and you'll quickly see what we mean.

If you've already got Google Maps on your BlackBerry, Nokia S60, T-Mobile G1, iPhone, or other smartphone, then you don't have to download anything to start using this new feature. This is because today's launch was made on our servers, not the Google Maps for mobile client.

But if you don't already have Google Maps for mobile, visit google.com/gmm on your phone to download it today.

Posted by Constantinos Michael, Software Engineer

Happy New Year!

One evening in Zurich, after a late night cake run, we decided that our iPhone app, Google Mobile App with Voice Search, could do with a little bling. The result of this is a few extra options hidden below the preferences on the Settings tab. Trust us, they're down there... it just might take some perseverance to get to the bottom of things. Just keep trying!

Does blue not go with your new belt? Use the Theme Color to style the app to work with any outfit or match the holiday season.

Tired of the standard beeps and boops during speech recognition? You can try out some alternate sounds made by our teammates in their sugar-induced stupor.

There are a couple of other options hidden in there, too. We had (a little too much) fun implementing these features and hope you enjoy them!

And don't worry. If you don't find them, just come see us at Macworld and we'll show you.

Posted by Nicholas Jitkoff, User Experience Designer