Device Arena

Google, the Mounatin View internet giant, released a beta version of My Location, an application for Google Maps that enables mobile phone users to view their location on the map, without necessarily having a GPS enabled device. With My Location, users can save precious time when wanting to find out where they are, what’s around them or how to reach their destination.

The My Location service is offered by Google for free, of course, but only in the US (for the moment). It is created independent of carriers and it relies on cell tower identification, that’s why it works on both GPS and non GPS devices.

To use My Location you have to first download Google Maps from the Google website (if you don’t have it already), start the application and press the 0 key. The map will then indicate your position with a blue dot. The application can complement your GPS device, as it loads faster and, unlike GPS, it works with no problems indoors. For the non-GPS devices, the blue dot that shows your location is surrounded by a circle, also blue, meaning the location is an approximate one. Google says the approximation is within a range of 1 kilometer, which is not bad at all since we’re not talking about GPS.

My Location is in beta version for now, but Google works constantly to develop it and improve its accuracy and coverage. The service is compatible with a wide range of web-enabled handsets, including Symbian, BlackBerry, Java and Windows Mobile devices. Bad news for the iPhone users though: since the Apple smartphone is not Java enabled, the My Location service will not work on it. But it will work on Google’s yet to come super phone, the Gphone – another reason for Apple to fear the Gphone’s competition.