When the Glympse app first came to Android, the idea of instantly sharing your exact location with someone was still novel. The function has lost much of its magic since, but it remains as useful as ever. Now the company is improving the service not by adding more features, but by gutting them out. The new Android-only Glympse Express app strips everything from the main app except for the essentials, the features you actually care about.
When you click on the Glympse Express icon in your drawer, you're presented with a list of contacts and social apps that you can share your location with. If a desired person or app isn't in the list, you're able to add it. After clicking on a destination, you select how long you want to share your location, and that's it. The recipient will receive a link that will open within a browser. Your open connections will appear in a list along the top of the app.
If you want to do something more with Glympse Express, anything at all, you will need to download the full app. But if you're like me, you won't have much of a reason to.
Glympse Launches Glympse Express for Instant Location Sharing on Android
Users Can Now Add Glympse Location into Any App or Service
SEATTLE, WA--(Marketwired - Oct 9, 2014) - Glympse, the world's leading location sharing technology company, today announced the availability of Glympse Express, a streamlined, Android-only version of the company's flagship app. This latest addition to the Glympse suite of applications allows users to share their location with any contact, app or service in an instant.
Glympse Express creates a seamless experience for users looking to insert location into a third-party application, essentially putting Glympse directly within the app or service. Users have the flexibility of sharing their location within their preferred communication method -- whether it's to a friend, social media site or WhatsApp or Google Hangouts message -- with just one tap. The latest app was developed in part feedback from users who wanted a way to shortcut the features the original Glympse offers to make it easy to share with a few selected contacts and apps.
"Our goal is to make real-time, temporary location sharing as simple as sending a text message or making a phone call," said Darren Austen, vice president of product, Glympse. "We are continually investing in new features and technologies to make location technology pervasive, and our latest app takes us one step closer to our goal. Never before has answering the question 'where are you?' been so easy."
To use Glympse Express, users set up a pre-set list of contacts, apps or services as "Favorites." From there, they simply tap the icon they would like to share location with, adjust the timer for the length they want their location visible, and Glympse instantly shares a link to a real-time, dynamic Glympse map. When the timer on the Glympse expires, the user's location is no longer visible. Recipients can open the Glympse in any mobile or web browser to view a dynamic map of the sender's whereabouts.
In addition to the company's suite of applications on iOS, Android and Windows Phone, the company has also partnered with a number of top-tier global organizations to provide location sharing. This includes wearable technology (Samsung, Pebble, Android Wear), connected cars (BMW/MINI, Ford, GM, Jaguar LandRover, Mercedes, Volkswagen and Volvo), automotive hardware (Mojio), messaging services (Blackberry, Verizon, ChatOn, Kik), and others (Gogo inflight, Garmin, NAVIGON).
To download the Glympse Express, visit http://bit.ly/Zu9SWC.