‘Location’ is a core part of many mobile services these days. Local news, local weather, local restaurants, local hotels… you name it. But GPS and location-based services are perhaps most useful for finding your way from A to B – and letting others see where you are.
While there are a number of location-sharing services out there such as Glympse, Routeshare has just entered the fray with its own take on the concept.
How it works
Routeshare for iPhone is more specifically about sharing with another person where you are and how long it will take you to arrive at a specific destination, rather than what route you’re taking. You simply enter a destination, select how frequently you want to display location updates, and hit ‘Start’.
This can then be shared with anyone across the usual channels, including email, Twitter and WhatsApp.
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The recipient will then see exactly where you are on your journey, how fast you’re moving and how long it should take you to arrive. Naturally, this won’t necessarily work well in cities where underground trains are the main mode of transport.
Routeshare has been well designed for sure, though it does borrow from Glympse and similar apps. However, while Glympse has a timer-function which pretty much forces the route-tracking to self-destruct within a pre-designated period of time, Routeshare just keeps going until the traveler reaches the destination. “We even wrote an algorithm that detects if you’re just passing your destination, so we keep sharing your location a little longer, for example when your looking for a parking spot,” adds the app’s creator Emiel Janson.
Routeshare is seeking to end questions such as: “Where are you know?”, “How long does it take?”, and “Do I have time to go to the shops before you arrive?”.
In theory, it should get more intelligent over time too. “We’re even locally caching your previous travel times, to learn when you rode your bike to work and ensure it effects the ETA the next time you go by bike to your work,” continues Janson.
Routeshare is available to download for iPhone now.
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