iOS 8 tips - How to share your location with friends in Messages

A cool new feature in iOS 8 lets you share your location with a friend or group of pals, directly from messages. You can share once, or broadcast a constantly-updating record of your location.

All in all, it makes the old Find my Friends app a bit redundant. RIP Find my Friends. We will miss your ugly leather interface.

In this article we'll explain how it all works so you too can share your location with someone and hope they don't come and murder you.

When you're in a Messages conversation with someone, hit 'Details' in the top right-hand corner and then press 'Send My Current Location'.

Your contact will get a tiny scrap of map, with a red pin showing your current location. They can then expand the map to see it in full screen, and hit 'Directions to Here' to navigate to your location.

If you instead tap 'Share My Location', your friend will be able to see exactly where you are at all times.

When you press the button you'll be asked how long you want to keep sharing your coordinates. You can pick 'One Hour', 'Until End of Day', and 'Indefinitely'.

Once it's done, the 'Share My Location' will now show how much longer it will be sharing your geographical data for and you can press 'Stop Sharing My Location' if you're suddenly on the run from the cops.

Your pal will get a notification in Messages to say that you've started sharing your location, and they'll have the option to share their location too.

Now you can see your friend's location from the Details page. It will be updated every few moments with their current location. It's a handy tool but watch out for battery drain.

Note that this also works quite nicely in group chats.