Wednesday, February 04, 2009

macworld: Latitude "coming soon" for iPhone

"Google’s just-announced Latitude, a service that lets users track the location of their friends—kind of like the Marauder’s Map in “Harry Potter,” except instead of an enchanted parchment you use Google Maps—is “coming soon” for the iPhone and iPod touch, according to Google’s posts touting the feature.

In a list of phones Latitude supports, support for iPhone and iPod touch is listed as “Coming soon! … via the Google Mobile App” (), at least in the United States.

It’s a direct assault by Google on the location-savvy social networking used by apps such as Loopt ().

Our pals down the hall at PC World have a more detailed look at how Google Latitude works, if you’re curious."

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"BANGALORE (Reuters) - Google Inc released software on Wednesday that allows users of mobile phones and other wireless devices to automatically share their whereabouts with family and friends.

Users in 27 countries will be able to broadcast their location to others constantly, using Google Latitude. Controls allow users to select who receives the information or to go offline at any time, Google said on its website.

"Fun aside, we recognize the sensitivity of location data, so we've built fine-grained privacy controls right into the application," Google said in a blog post announcing the service.

"You not only control exactly who gets to see your location, but you also decide the location that they see."

Friends' whereabouts can be tracked on a Google map, either from a handset or from a personal computer.

Google's new service is similar to the service offered by privately-held Loopt.

Companies including Verizon Wireless, owned by Verizon Communications and Vodafone Group Plc, already offer Loopt's service, which also works on iPhone from Apple Inc.

Latitude will work on Research In Motion Ltd's Blackberry and devices running on Symbian S60 devices or Microsoft Corp's Windows Mobile and some T-1 Mobile phones running on Google's Android software.

The software will eventually run on Apple's iPhone and iTouch and many Sony Ericsson devices. "

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I will need to check the iphone version of Lattitude to make a more fair comparison.

So far I'm a loopt addict!

Anonymous said...

Don't forget about brightkite.