No matter your smartphone, it has an app or feature that lets you share your location with friends and family (and even temporarily with strangers if you like). If you have an iPhone, it’s the Find My app. If you have a Samsung Galaxy, it’s the Samsung Find app. If you have a Pixel, it’s the Contacts app (but also just Google Maps).
The problem is that these location-sharing apps mostly rely on the other person having the same smartphone as you. So it’s iPhone to iPhone. Or Android to Android.
Of course, there are location-sharing apps that work across devices, such as Life360 or Glympse. And iPhone’s Find My and Samsung’s Samsung Find apps have workarounds that make them cross-compatible. But those can be a little complicated.
The good news is that some of most popular apps around are adopting live-location sharing. So it doesn’t really matter what kind of smartphone you have. The latest app to do this is Instagram.
Meet up in the real world
Announced this week, Instagram is adding the ability to share your live location with somebody via your direct messages (or DMs). You’ll also be able to pin a meeting location on the map.
