Google Latitude — the service that either allows you to keep track of your friends or be stalked by stalking stalker types, depending on your point of view — is finally available for the iPhone and iPod touch. No, it’s not built into Google Maps as part of iPhone 3.1 with push update capability. No, it’s not built into Google Mobile app. No, it’s not even set up as an iPhone app in and of itself.
Google Latitude is a WebApp and it runs in Mobile Safari using the iPhone 3.0geoLocation feature.
Apparently Apple, in their infinitely-looped wisdom, hasn’t yet deigned (or Google wouldn’t yet offer them the chance?) to build it into Maps, and Apple decided it would be too confusing to users to have another app on the iPhone thats shows the same Google maps. (And it’s not when simply framed by mobile browser chrome? Sigh.)
While Google inarguably makes among the best iPhone WebApps in the business, this doesn’t strike us an ideal solution. Still it is a solution for iPhone users desperate to get their Latitude on. Until Apple gets their act together on this, here’s official word from the blog:
Our Latitude web app provides all the core functionality you might expect: you can see the location of your friends on a map and modify your privacy settings so that you control how your location is shared and with whom. In fact, if my friends and colleagues back in London haven’t yet noticed my absence, they’ll see in Latitude that I’m currently vacationing on the beach in Australia. Hi guys, remember me!?
[...] To try Google Latitude, type google.com/latitude into your iPhone’s browser. And if you miss the experience of launching the app directly from your home screen, you can add a bookmark to the home screen by opening Latitude in Safari and tapping the + icon > Add to Home Screen > Add.
Google Blogs (via Gizmodo) has announced that the long-rumored Geo-Location based services in Mobile Safari are indeed included in iPhone 3.0 and being put to use in “My Location” searches by Google.com on the iPhone.
As of today, when you visit www.google.com from Safari on your iPhone 3.0, you can choose to turn on My Location by tapping on the link on the homepage. When you tap on the “update” link, your location will be updated and displayed right there on the homepage. Whenever you want to refresh your location, just tap the “update” link. Testing this in New York, my search for “jazz clubs” returned a handful of places within walking distance. I picked one, tapped the phone number, made a reservation, and we were set for the night.
As to privacy concerns, Google stresses the service is opt-in and can be turned off via the Preferences link at the bottom of the page. Also, it currently only works in English in the US and UK, though other languages and regions are said to be coming soon.
Good news for those looking for a local burger joint, bad news for those hoping Latitude wouldn’t be stuck in the browser…
When he’s not borrowing CrackBerry Kevin’s personal handset to snap quick pics and give Android Cassey conniptions, Google CEO Eric Schmidt is responding to reporters about his role as a member of Apple’s Board of Directors in light of Google entering the operating system space — again:
“I’ll talk to the Apple people. At the moment, there’s no issue,”
Since Google Chrome OS is little more than announce-ware at this point (or, “darn, we should have made webOS instead of Android?), that may be true, but it’s hardly a tenable situation going forward. What this will mean to Apple/Google relations is unknown. Though right now the iPhone clearly benefits from Google data pipes, especially in the Maps app, how much do they benefit from Schmidt being on the board?
Our guess? Schmidt was using that BlackBerry camera to zoom on the unlicensed Mercedes — and glaring Steve Jobs — that’s been shadowing him since Tuesday, and carefully penning his resignation letter…
Our sibling site, Android Central, brings word we’d almost given up faith at ever being brought’ned. Google apps, including the Gmail, Calendar, Docs, and Talk we love so much on the iPhone (and iPod touch), are out of beta and high on life! Google’s own blog explains-ish:
We’ve come to appreciate that the beta tag just doesn’t fit for large enterprises that aren’t keen to run their business on software that sounds like it’s still in the trial phase. So we’ve focused our efforts on reaching our high bar for taking products out of beta, and all the applications in the Apps suite have now met that mark.
Makes the kind of sense that doesn’t, but whatever. Opaque, non-standard definitions of beta aside, it’s still good news. What’s next, announce a second operating system or something?
Love them or hate them, miracle or menace, Emoji are standard message elements in Japan and have caught some favor among internet iPhone users (and TiPb Forum staff…)
The problem, however, is that there’s currently no standard way to encode the little mega-smileys across different carriers and platforms, leading to a lot of “translation” work in between. The solution?
engineers from Google and Apple have got together to try to propose an encoding for these emoji (they have identified 674 of them!) that can be added to the official standard ISO/IEC 10646, as can be seen in this document, Proposal for Encoding Emoji Symbols.
Maybe next Apple could work on not requiring complex, app-bound Emoji activation processes for non-Japanese iPhones? Sumo, tiny red cars, and weirdly smiling brown piles for everyone!
We all know Google isn’t a search engine company, they’re a company that makes googzillions of dollars monetizing search (and trying to monetize other things) via their AdSense advertising platform. For iPhones, this was previously constrained to the browser window of Mobile Safari (or Chrome Lite for Android users). Now, however, the Official Google Blog announces:
AdSense for Mobile Applications allows developers to earn revenue by displaying text and image ads in their iPhone and Android applications. For our beta launch, we’ve created a site where developers can learn more about the AdSense for Mobile Applications program, see answers to frequently asked questions and sign up to participate in our beta. Advertisers can also learn about the benefits of advertising in mobile applications.
Advertising lets Google and others supply lots of free services to users. Will it be as successful embedded in apps as it is in the browser? Developers, are you interested in Google AdSense monetizing your apps? Users, would you put up with Google advertising if it meant cheap or free apps?
Our sibling site Android Central is all over the new HTC Hero announcement — the latest Android smartphone and one that looks decidedly different from its G1 predecessor.
We weren’t exactly fond of the G1’s user experience, but did lust after their notification system and push Gmail. Does this latest entry, with its Senses UI, up the ante? And should Apple be worried yet, or is Microsoft and Windows Mobile still the low-hanging fruit in Google’s sights?
Once upon a time, Google had an iPhone optimized version iGoogle. Then Christina Warren from Download Squad caught them in the act of taking it away. Now, our sibling-site Android Central tells us it’s returned. Confusing saga, good update:
Today, we’re excited to roll out an improved beta version of iGoogle for the iPhone and Android-powered devices. This new version is faster and easier to use. It supports tabs as well as more of your favorite gadgets, including those built by third-party developers. Note that not all gadgets — like those with Flash — will work in mobile browsers.
Are you an iGoogle user? If not, is this enough to interest you? Either way, if you check it out, let us know what you think!
If there is one truth in the inter-verse, it’s this: Give Google time, and their WebApps will blow. your. mind. Some are brilliant, like Google Maps or Gmail. Some are tragic, like contacts, but all of them push the browserspace further and faster each and every time.
Their latest is Google Wave, revealed at I/O last week and built by the same brothers that kicked off the AJAX explosion with Google Maps. It asks the simple yet profound question: what if internet communication hadn’t been architected 40 years ago with email, but was imagined today?
Highly configurable, fabulously interactive, and — of course — entirely web-server centric, Google Wave lets users connect and work with other users via any browser and many devices. And you know the iPhone was front and center (alongside Android).
YouTube seems to be suffering lately (I blame Dieter’s Palm Pre videos for clogging the hubs!), and at an hour and twenty minutes long, the video above is time consuming to say the least, but if you watch even the beginning of it, win, lose, or draw, the glimpse it gives into the future of WebApps and especially mobile WebApps is fascinating.
Techcrunch reports that during Google’s I/O developers conference they showed off the iPhone version of Latitude — which lets users stalk keep track of their friends via GPS and other location-based services — but not as part of some revamped Map or Google Mobile application as many suspected:
Google has been waiting for the [iPhone] 3.0 software is because it’s not actually creating a native iPhone app for Latitude — as all other location-based services on the iPhone are — instead it’s using the Safari web browser to run Latitude. Thanks to HTML 5, Safari will be able to access a user’s location information and Latitude will be able to access that as well (provided the user gives permission). This will put it on par with what Google is doing in its browser for Android.
Now, Google has made arguably the best and mostimpressivecatalog of WebApps seen on the iPhone to date, but why go that route with Latitude? And waiting for iPhone 3.0 to be released this summer, which also sounds strange given MobileSafari in 3.0 doesn’t look to answer any of the persistent-connection problems Latitude faces on the iPhone platform (i.e. lack of background multi-tasking).
