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Say it with flowers, say it with chocolates or say it with a Nexus One: How to propose with Google Maps

Who says that your smartphone is just a way to check Facebook on the go and search for cat videos on YouTube? We love this story of how Google software engineer Ari Gilder used Google Maps to propose to his girlfriend Faigy in New York.

Enlisting the help of co-workers and friends, Ari made a “custom mobile app” made “with the help of my fellow Google engineers Andrew Oplinger and Matt Keoshkerian. The app would let Faigy check in to each location, then prompt her for a password to find out the next location. I provided each friend with a question to ask Faigy, tied to our memories of that particular place, the answer to which was the password.”

The password would then prompt the app to provide walking directions to the next location. Following these directions across New York on a Nexus One, Faigy ended up on Roosevelt Island, where the couple went on their second date and where Ari popped the question.

You can see the route that was planned out on the map above as well as see how it was all worked out here; the route was planned out using My Maps beforehand.

Though we’ve not the expertise the make an app of our own like this, we think that you could achieve something similar with the help of some friends and some QR Codes.

Using the ZXing Project’s free QR Code generator, you could create codes that would, when scanned on an Android phone (or any phone with a scanner and Google Maps) point your beloved in the direction of a map location.

Just make sure that you don’t forget the ring.

This article was originally published on the 6th of September 2011.

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