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The Over Here iPhone App – by Ed Lea in London

I had a note in the other day from Ed Lea. Ed has knocked up a new iPhone Application, now available in the iTunes store. He wondered if we’d be interested in reviewing it. Of course! In fact, here’s what he wrote:

I’ve been reading the various commentaries you guys have been writing about iPhone experiences and I was just wondering if you were thinking of doing any form of reviews of applications?

As a London-based developer I’m basically being very cheeky and asking for a plug for my app, “Over Here”. I appreciate it falls a bit outside the sort of stuff you normally write about but “if you don’t ask…”, etc

It’s not cheeky, Ed. We’re well up for plugging. To any other developers out there: Do send us details and we’ll do our very best to get a piece up about on the site.

I wrote back to Ed and told him ‘bring it on’ or words to that effect. He sent me back this description:

It’s a pretty basic app, but one that I’ve personally wanted for a while. It uses iPhone’s location services (so works on the original or 3G phones) to locate you, shows you the position on a simple map, allows you to fine tune the position and then email it someone as a Google Maps link. That link opens on an iPhone straight into the Google Maps application so the receiver can see where you are and hopefully come and meet you.

The version on the App Store at the moment is 0.99. I’ve got a more polished version, that allows you to change the default email text from my slightly cheesy one, pending approval from Apple. Hopefully that will get reviewed and released by them soon, but unfortunately there’s no telling how long it might take.

You can download Over Here at this address. (It’ll pop up iTunes on your machine, or, if you’re on the iPhone, it’ll pop you straight into the iTunes App page for Over Here).

It is £0.59.

Here’s how it works.

1. Run the application and tap the pin.

Uploaded - 7 Aug 2008

2. Give the application permission to access your location.

Uploaded - 7 Aug 2008-1

3. Let the map briefly load.

Uploaded - 7 Aug 2008-2

4. The map loads and magically shows where you are. Joy. I’m in Essix.

Uploaded - 7 Aug 2008-3

5. Then simply click the pin to email your location.

Uploaded - 7 Aug 2008-4

6. This fires up an email with some default text — including the Google Maps link to your location.

Uploaded - 7 Aug 2008-5

Genius.

I can think of so many uses for this. If your friend is trying to find you. If you want to show someone where the BBQ is. If you want to tell your mates to meet you at this Starbucks or what not. Brilliant.

Good work Ed!

19 COMMENTS

  1. Is it worth a cheeky piece of code allowing the non-iphone-owning-yet-google-mapped-up folk have a go?

    ie: I'd love to be able to click that link and let it just boot up Google Maps on my N95…

    Send us a link Ewan – lets see what happens 🙂

  2. WALLED GARDEN!!!

    I want Ewan to (be able to) send me a link from his iPhone, to my N95. Then I want Google Maps to boot up and show me what he did on his iPhone.

  3. That would require registering a handler on the phone…
    If you send the link as gmaps://123123123 then it might pick it up.
    Or you could send a link to Google's mobile pages.
    Or a SMS with a special PID which the phone would pass to Gmaps…
    Quite tricky with the current mobile architecture.

    Truth be told, I usually take a screenshot of the map and MMS it!

    Actually, it really annoys me that Google Maps Mobile has no integration with the web version. I want to be able to see the maps I've created on the web on my phone.

  4. off topic somewhat…I'm using a Nokia N95 (with GPS)… is there an app/service that allwos me to show my location on a web page to other people in real time? a consumer-grade tracking service, I guess.

  5. Re screenshots – that's what I do too… Save messin' about.
    Or – in the case of my recent fancy dress picnic – I send them a link to a Mippin page with the directions already prepared…

  6. Ok so we tried this on Friday while we were trying to meet for Episode 17 of the Podcast and this is what happened:

    1) Ewan emailed his 'I'm over here!' link to my Yahoo account.
    2) I logged into http://m.yahoo.com to read it… which I did, but I couldn't click.
    3) So then I tried logging into http://beta.m.yahoo.com… which I did, and I could click.
    4) I clicked.
    5) I got a fail. http://m.google.com didn't like the http://maps.google.com link that I was giving it.

    Bah.

  7. Ok so we tried this on Friday while we were trying to meet for Episode 17 of the Podcast and this is what happened:

    1) Ewan emailed his 'I'm over here!' link to my Yahoo account.
    2) I logged into http://m.yahoo.com to read it… which I did, but I couldn't click.
    3) So then I tried logging into http://beta.m.yahoo.com… which I did, and I could click.
    4) I clicked.
    5) I got a fail. http://m.google.com didn't like the http://maps.google.com link that I was giving it.

    Bah.

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