google logoI was so excited when I first saw Google Latitude, that words cannot describe the feeling fully. I was thought, finally, when I am picking up a call from someone, I can find him easily. I was thinking this would be the end to those horrible phone calls that you spend trying to navigate a person, who doesn’t even bloody know where they are themselves.

So this last weekend, I was picking up my colleague from Prague, and I knew which part of the city he was in, but we agreed to try Google Latitude, him with his Google Android phone (on EDGE), and me with my Nokia E90 (with 3G). Both had the latest updated firmwares, both with updated Google Maps software, and both with normally fully functioning Google Maps, that have you located via the internal GPS (our own points showed correctly).

So I drove down to the river to pick him up, and I see his image. I was moving towards him, and he was moving towards me. And here we encountered the problem. It would be perfectly fine if the positions of our characters would actually refresh - they didn’t. So, when we were moving, we were waiting to finally see each other, however, our positions remained the same on Latitude even as we were moving. They didn’t refresh! In the process, we crossed paths, unknowingly, several times.

I don’t know if it’s a bug or some public beta, but then on the way we tried to restart phones and the software several times when driving and trying to align and synch our positions correctly - but neither of us really “drove” in line and the positions of the Latitude characters did not refresh.

I love Google technologies, don’t get me wrong, but seriously - this is more of a preview alfa with bugs, then a usable beta. I hope Google gets this updated soon. Big disappointment.

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