I was using Google Movie Showtimes the other day to look up local times and noticed something really annoying: it doesn’t remember what location I want to search.
Most of the time web requests from my laptop go through a proxy connection. The result, even though I’m signed into my Google account, the showtimes site does a geo-ip lookup and assumes I’m in New York instead of Utah. Not a big deal, I enter in my zip code into the “Change Location” form, hit the button, then get the times I was looking for.
Then things get really strange, it doesn’t remember what location I entered. The next time I go to www.google.com/movies it uses geo-ip again and moves me from Utah to New York.
The page is hard coded to always use geo-ip, even when I tell them I’m some where else. Perhaps they could add a checkbox on the ‘Change Location’ form that says ‘Make This My Default Location’.
Using geo-ip to come up with smart defaults can be very helpful. When it prevents me from setting the right location then it becomes irritating.