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Girlfriend to fiancée...

       Does this post title "Girlfriend to Fiancée" seem a bit out of place here? Well, actually no! A googler recently had his girlfriend navigate a proposal with Google Maps for mobile.

       Ari Gilder - Software Engineer with Google decided to propose to his girlfriend Faigy. He wanted to do something special and different but also meaningful. And this resulted in his developing a mobile application using Google maps to create an ultimate romantic scavenger hunt!

      Ari wanted Faigy to visit places around New York city that were filled with memories of their relationship. His plan was to construct a map of the route and get Faigy from one destination to another, all with an element of surprise and Google maps provided him the tools to create the magic.

     Ari used Google My Maps to plan out the route - from the Trader Joe's where they shop at on the Upper West Side, to Magnolis Bakery where they spent part of their first date, to Hudson Bar & Lounge where they enjoyed a night of dancing, to Carnegie Hall where Faigy had once surprised him with tickets to a Beethoven concert, all the way to the lighthouse on Roosevelt Island where they had gone on their second date.



     He had secretly coordinated with Faigy's manager at work to give her a Nexus One preloaded with Google Maps for mobile, a camera and instructions to go to the first location. He had a friend stationed at each of the six locations before the final stop to give Faigy a rose, take a picture of her with the roses and to make sure that she checked in with Google Maps. Meanwhile, he anxiously awaited her arrival at the Roosevelt Island lighthouse.



        Faigy's phone had a custom mobile app that Ari had built with the help of his fellow Google engineers Andrew Oplinger and Matt Keoshkerian. The app was built in such a way that it allowed her to check in at each location and then she would be prompted for a password to find out the next location. Ari had provided each of his friend with a question to ask Faigy, tied to their memories of that particular place, the answer to which would be the password. When she would enter the password, the app would automatically initiate walking navigation to the next location.



        When Faigy got to the checkered pin that marked her last destination, her seventh and the final rose came with a question - but this was from Ari and it wasn't an ordinary question. I'll leave it to you readers to guess what Faigy's answer would have been to Ari's question!


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