In a interview with technology columnists @TechCrunch, Google senior product manager Steve Lee today hinted the company is looking into ways to provide their location-based ‘Latitude’ service as a native app specifically for iPhone OS.
If you’re not yet familiar with the service, Google Latitude is a location-aware mobile app developed by Google and the service allows a mobile phone user to allow certain people to track their location.
Via iGoogle accounts, users cell phone location is mapped on Google Maps, and the user can then control the accuracy and details of what each of the other users can see ”” an exact location can be allowed, or it can be limited to identifying the city only.
For privacy purposes, Latitude can also be turned off by the user, or a location can be manually entered. Users have to explicitly opt in to Latitude, and may only see the location of friends who have decided to share their location.
Taking advantage of the background processing to be introduced in iPhone OS 4.0 this summer Lee replied:
“From the start, we’ve made Latitude available across platforms. Supporting iPhone with a great Latitude user experience is extremely important to us, and we’re evaluating the best way to deliver that on iPhone OS 4.0 now, so we don’t have anything to announce just yet.”
The question is if the app ever comes to fruition, will it make it past the App Store approval gates? After all, Apple started rejecting most of Google’s apps a few months back, with little still available on the store from the company.
Of course, due to a contract between Apple and @Google, iPhone OS still boasts Google Maps and Google Search natively. But, iPhone OS 4.0 betas seeded to developers suggest this relationship may too end soon, with Apple removing the word ‘Google’ from the on-screen keyboard’s search button, OS-wide.
I guess we’ll just have to wait and see!
[via @iClarified]
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