The good news is that you and your sister still want to meet up even after what sounds like multiple mishaps of geography, so let's keep that in mind. Turns out what you're talking about is pretty easy, but I'm curious why you don't pick a place to meet then just share the street address? Then it's hard to not be in the same place at the same time, and if you factor in taxi drivers, well, it should be a slam dunk.
Still, your question's your question so I'll answer it. To tackle this one, I enlisted the aid of my daughter, who was on a road trip between Denver, Colorado and Kansas City, Kansas.
To show me where she was, we first tried Glympse, but it doesn't always work properly, so plan B was to launch the Maps app then share the current location.
On her iPhone 4, it looked like this:
Once the app had located her on the map, the next step was to tap on the blue circle with the ">", which reveals more information on the current location:
Doesn't seem like a lot of information, but the map url includes latitude/longitude information which is how it can pinpoint the location when she's otherwise in the middle of nowhere. As you can see from the satellite view, not very exciting.
Just below "Add to Contacts" is another button, "Share Location". That's what my daughter tapped to bring up the share options:
While she could share her location on Facebook or Twitter, all we seek is a simple text message that embeds the map location, and that's done with a tap on "Message".
Now let's switch to my iPhone, where her "Current Location" appears as part of our back and forth chat:
A tap on the blue circle with the ">" symbol again, and now I can see on a map exactly where she is:
The blue dot on the map? That's my current location. You can see, we're pretty far apart. In fact, tapping on the blue ">" button again, i could actually have the mapping app figure out driving directions point to point, revealing she's about 2 1/2 hours away.
In any case, teach your sister this trick and you can text each other map points any time you'd like. I hope that helps you find each other!
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Categorized:
iPhone and Cell Phone Help
(Article 10602,
Written by
Dave Taylor)
Tagged:
apple iphone, apple maps, driving directions, geolocation, glimpse, google maps, map sharing
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Another method for this on iPhones is the very helpful Find Friends (from Apple) or Latitude (from Google - requires a Google account). Both require the permission of the person who is sending their information to share it with you and both allow the constant tracking of someone else. Both people can share locations with each other presuming they give permission, too.
The only downside is that this is an "always-on" option as opposed to simply sending a location when you want to inform the other person where you are. That said, my spouse and I use it all the time because it saves dozens of needless "Where r u?" texts and also provides her with a general location of where I am while I'm out biking. If I get stuck somewhere - or worse - she will at least know the last place I was located while I had cell phone coverage.
As I say, it's not the perfect solution for everyone because it's a constant sharing instead of the occasional "I'm here" notice, but it works for us - and very well at that.