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Comments: 195 +-   Google Latitude Arrives For the iPhone — As a Web App on Sunday July 26 2009, @11:22AM

Posted by Soulskill on Sunday July 26 2009, @11:22AM
from the on-again-off-again dept.
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An anonymous reader writes "After months of waiting, the Google Latitude social maps service finally arrived for the iPhone ... but thanks to an Apple rejection of the natively developed app, it's a web app. Says Google on their blog, 'We worked closely with Apple to bring Latitude to the iPhone in a way Apple thought would be best for iPhone users. After we developed a Latitude application for the iPhone, Apple requested we release Latitude as a web application in order to avoid confusion with Maps on the iPhone.' But it gets worse for iPhone users: 'Unfortunately, since there is no mechanism for applications to run in the background on iPhone (which applies to browser-based web apps as well), we're not able to provide continuous background location updates in the same way that we can for Latitude users on Android, BlackBerry, Symbian and Windows Mobile.' Latitude has been sprouting new features lately and is an interesting take on social networking, but it looks like Apple is determined to ensure its users only get a seriously crippled implementation compared to the Android and WinMo versions. PC World put it less politely than Google did, saying, 'Google's new Latitude Web app for iPhone is so hamstrung that Apple customers may be wishing they had a BlackBerry or Android handset instead.'"
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  • Apple always have something cooking, maybe an update for maps is around the corner taking in this functionality. I wouldn't discount it especially when they want to be at the forefront for mobile applications.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Pollardito (781263)
      I believe the Maps app on the iPhone is made by Google, so if there was an update around the corner that added this functionality I would think that Google would be aware of it

  • Apple needs to re-think some things (Score:3, Insightful)

    by schnikies79 (788746) on Sunday July 26 2009, @11:34AM (#28827747)

    Happy iPhone user here.

    Although I couldn't give less of a crap about this particular application (it's pretty worthless overall, in my opinion). They do need to open up the API a bit or they are going to be passed by.

    Frankly, I think they will. Steve Jobs isn't one to be outdone by competition.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by moon3 (1530265)
      Steve Jobs had lots of misses too. I don't think Apple is invincible.

    • Re:Apple needs to re-think some things (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jellomizer (103300) on Sunday July 26 2009, @12:18PM (#28828061)

      There is a real balance out there. The reason for the tight control is to prevent damaging software, which is a good thing. However Apple needs to lay off on apps that compete with the phones defaults. Sure their stuff is good but it doesn't always quite feet the need where a new app could.

      I personally think their process should just check to insure the app doesn't kill the phone or slow it down way to much. And that it is age related. But besides that, let the honest companies make software without worry that they will get denied just because of some app approver with a God complex.

    • MobileMe: $99/year/customer for Apple. The main selling point for a great many prospective users isn't any of the other junk they don't care about, it's being able to essentially LoJack their phones - something all the more critical as there aren't the usual insurance plans for the expensive piece of hardware that you have to pay $600 to replace.

      Latitude: $0/year/customer for Apple. In many ways would provide the same service.

      I'd suggest that, whilst you may see the app as pretty worthless, Apple sees it as

  • Is there a way to filter out anything "iPhone"? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by erroneus (253617) on Sunday July 26 2009, @11:42AM (#28827823) Homepage

    Yet another iPhone discussion that includes "apple will not allow [X]"... They are starting to bore and depress me as they are rather futile. The Apple fans will always blindly support and back the Apple position. People who disagree with the Apple position will always see things as they do as well. Neither side will win the other over. And if it did, Apple would just kill the iPhone project completely.

    I have to wonder if there is ever anything "apple fans" ever complain or disagree with Apple about? I'd like to hear from Apple fans to know if they are actually independent or completely sold into the Apple view. I remember some faint complaints about the change to OSX but those didn't last long. The "classic" mode also raised a bit of ire and frustration as I recall. But is Apple "simply perfect?" Can Apple do no wrong?

    • Re:Is there a way to filter out anything "iPhone"? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF (813746) on Sunday July 26 2009, @12:02PM (#28827953)

      Yet another iPhone discussion that includes "apple will not allow [X]"... They are starting to bore and depress me as they are rather futile. The Apple fans will always blindly support and back the Apple position... I have to wonder if there is ever anything "apple fans" ever complain or disagree with Apple about?

      You're committing the no true scotsman fallacy here. You define Apple fans as people who will support anything Apple does and then question if Apple fans will ever complain or disagree. There are plenty of people who like a lot of what Apple does, but still are happy to complain about what Apple does that they don't like. If someone is complaining about Apple here, how do you know if they're an Apple fan on other topics?

      Apple has restrictive and problematic policies that make it difficult or impossible for some applications to work properly. This is certainly a problem. At the same time, those same policies are preventing the iPhone experience form being overrun with a million really crappy applications that degrade the normal user's experience and present huge security and performance problems. Those people complaining that Apple is not competitive when you look at a laundry list of features other smartphones have are completely missing the point. That's not why Apple products become successful. Apple is good at creating a good user experience for normal people and providing only the subset of features they can do well and which contribute to making the overall experience better. Apple wants long battery life, apps sandboxed from one another for security, and apps quality and security checked through a single pipeline. So far a lot of normal users really like that. When they can do other things well enough they'll add those, but they aren't going to rush to add new things just because other phones have them, if Apple doesn't think it will be an overall benefit. If you don't like that, you're probably not their target market.

      P.S. I don't have an iPhone and am not really their target market either. I can just appreciate the value of what they do for normal users.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by maxume (22995)

        My impression was that the appstore is already a morass of crap anyway (the crap in the store might not present resource or security problems, but that doesn't mean it is useful).

        I agree with your assessment that Apple tries to sell a good experience, but from what I can tell, the Appstore suffers from the same plight as pretty much every freeware review site, inclusiveness is favored over editorial opinion (they sort of have to do this is they are going to sell the phones in a state that is locked to their

      • Another Apple user here (Macbook this time); I agree with your post and newsletter etc: I'm overall happy with my Mac, but I think Apple is doing certain things that invoke the wrath of us geeks because they are /too/ dumbed down (and cannot be smartened up). Something we used to acuse Microsoft of as well, ironically enough. Another 'feature' is the binary lock-in (which resonates with the subject at hand here); I always hold my breath when doing a software update. Not only do they require reboots too o

      • It's true, this is a known fallacy. A true Scotsman would have figured this out.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Wyatt Earp (1029)

      Apple fan since '91 here, and yea, I have some complaints.

      No MMS on the iPhone. Video I don't give a rip about, but the lack of MMS is annoying.
      The USB keyboards have always been too damned small.
      The USB mice have always sucked from Apple, the ADB mice rocked though.
      Moving power to the side of the MacBooks/Powerbooks also sucked.

      Documentation has lacked for a decade or so too.

      • Re:Is there a way to filter out anything "iPhone"? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by amiga3D (567632) on Sunday July 26 2009, @12:05PM (#28827971)
        Apple does things their way. It works for them. It works for their users. The ones doing all the bitching are mostly just people that love to hate apple. I personally don't own an iPhone. I don't need a phone that's also a computer. I like seperate devices. But the people that I know that have an iPhone absolutely adore them. It's kind of disgusting. :)
        • and, of course, if one absolutely need a latitude stile app in the background, they could just get a freaking android. nonsense in bitching about iphone being inferior to an android or the other way around - there is no lockin a là microsoft vs linux, every phone out there could call almost every other and that's all about it; extra features are extras and if you need something there are a gazzilion other model that may better suite customer needs.

          or they're telling me that they bought a 2500 dollars

  • Latitude web app better than most "native" ones (Score:3, Interesting)

    by bangpound (1106805) on Sunday July 26 2009, @11:48AM (#28827867)
    Google Latitude is an immature service. It's not as interesting or useful as Brightkite or even Loopt. However, the web app is brilliant. The responsiveness of the app is not very different from the iPhone Maps app. The directions tool is in some ways better. The fact that it's not a "real" app isn't important to me. In fact, it shows that most of the apps out there are unnecessary... they could be web apps instead.

  • Flamebate-tastic (Score:2, Insightful)

    by crmarvin42 (652893)

    but it looks like Apple is determined to ensure its users only get a seriously crippled implementation compared to the Android and WinMo versions.

    I think a more accurate replacement for this line would be, "but it looks like Apple is unwilling to make exceptions to their developer agreement for Google. Unfortunately, this means a crippled implementation compared to the Android and WinMo versions."

    This summary makes it seem as though Apple conciously went out of their way to cripple the app, instead simply being inflexible in it's design restrictions. Everyone and their cat has an opinion on Apples "1 app at a time" policy, and that's fine. Bash

  • Google and web apps (Score:5, Insightful)

    by YourExperiment (1081089) on Sunday July 26 2009, @12:08PM (#28827993)

    This must be a tiny bit embarrassing for Google. They're staking their reputation on Chrome OS, an OS based on the principle that native apps have had their day, and that everything we want to do can be done perfectly well through web apps.

    Yet everyone's describing Google's web app as "crippled" on the iPhone, solely because Apple wouldn't allow them to release the native version of it. Why did they even deem it necessary to write a native version in the first place?

    Incidentally, is there something in the Slashdot terms and conditions which means the site has to get worse every day? I can't even interact with the comment box with my mouse any more, it just ignores all clicks as if there's another HTML element overlaying it. This is truly pathetic.

    • Did you even RTFA? It's one thing for web apps to be fully functional on a desktop or a notebook, it's quite another on a handset. The specific issue as hand is that it's crippled because it can't run in the background, due to the iPhone's shitty implementation of multi-tasking, whereas as a native app they were hoping it could. If, however, it were the Pre, for example, this would be a non-issue, because Pre users can just keep a background browser open continuously if they want, and open other browsers at

  • What's up with Apple lately? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by HangingChad (677530) on Sunday July 26 2009, @12:15PM (#28828035) Homepage

    ... but thanks to an Apple rejection of the natively developed app, it's a web app.

    Breaking iTunes compatibility on Linux and Blackberry and now they're crippling a Google app. What up? I'm sure there's a strategy here, I just can't see it.

    I don't think trying to Balkanize their services and regulate iPhone users is going to ultimately be good for them or their user base. The iPhone user demographic may not have the same brand loyalty as the Apple faithful.

    Beyond that I've always been impressed with Apple's execution...until recently. Instead of their usual suave and polish, always being ahead of the curve in packaging and style, lately they seem to be heavy handed and bumbling around a bit. Reactive instead of their usual proactive. Being reactive and heavy handed reminds me of Microsoft and even though I'm not a Mac fan myself I really appreciate what Apple did well.

    I hope they right themselves and implement a service strategy with the same quality they've shown in other areas. If they start trying to make iPhones the AOL of cellular services, then Google and other providers are going to out-maneuver them with superior service offerings on a wider range of devices.

    Maybe it's some flashback to the OS wars. Instead of a big market share and being the dominant player in the field, Apple is setting themselves up for a smaller but more loyal market share. Which could be either good or bad depending on how you feel about them tying their OS to their hardware.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by indiechild (541156)

      Apple has always been like this. It's Steve Jobs' style.

      Sometimes it's maddening. But my overall experience with Apple products is still overwhelmingly positive, which is why I keep buying and using them.

      Apple doesn't care for "marketshare" as such -- they care about profits. So as long as they get the biggest profits, it doesn't matter what kind of marketshare they have. Indeed, they might have only a small marketshare, which is perfectly fine. That's why Apple refuses to compete at the lower end of the ma

  • background (Score:4, Funny)

    by WillKemp (1338605) on Sunday July 26 2009, @12:23PM (#28828091) Homepage

    The iphone's OS has no mechanism for running applications in the background??? That's stunning! Is it based on Windows 3.1 or something?

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by larry bagina (561269)
      The iPhone OS supports background processes. The app store guidelines ban background apps, to preserve battery life.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by topham (32406)

      Actually, the OS itself fully supports it.

      Apple will not allow 3rd parties to write apps that can run in the background.
      This is mostly due to battery life, and memory issues. Do some research on the typical issues people run into with background apps on other platforms and it starts to make a lot of sense. However, in this instance I think Apple is off their rocker. They should create an API to handle on-going location recording and posting.

  • HEY APPLE.

    Worried about us users confusing Latitude with Maps? We're not that stupid.

    Latitude is MUCH nicer. Thanks for putting us users first.

  • I find it odd... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Jafafa Hots (580169) on Sunday July 26 2009, @01:01PM (#28828361) Homepage Journal

    ...that the ultimate narcissist application (everyone needs to know exactly where I am every second!)... ...doesn't work on the ultimate narcissists cell phone.

  • No iphone? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by secureboot (920488)
    This is the first thing that's really made me want to get a non-iPhone. Latitude really introduces a lot of option for apps, and not being able to do this in the background really hamstrings the device. Hope Apple fixes this soon...

  • AT&T is likely crippling the iPhone (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Michael G. Kaplan (1517611) on Sunday July 26 2009, @01:28PM (#28828501)

    AT&T wants to sell their 'AT&T FamilyMap' plan to its users. Subscribers are charged $9.99 for the ability to locate up to 2 other people with AT&T phones $14.99 to locate up to 5 people. Google latitude will do this for free only better because users can locate as many people as they want and it can locate non-AT&T users.

    I think that Apple would be happy to allow this but the problem is that wireless providers abuse their oligopoly status to cripple cell phone features so that users are forced to give the wireless carriers money for things that they otherwise would have been free and better.

    For example Verizon forces smart phone manufacturers to rip out WiFi so users are forced to pay Verizon to access the internet. MP3 players are ripped out of cellphones and replaced by silly paid services such as VCast.

    Banning Latitude is almost certainly just another mundane example of carrier oligopoly abuse. The federal government needs to legislate to stop cell phone carriers from crippling phones.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Phroggy (441)

      Banning Latitude is almost certainly just another mundane example of carrier oligopoly abuse. The federal government needs to legislate to stop cell phone carriers from crippling phones.

      Wrong solution!

      The federal government needs break up the oligopoly to allow real competition to thrive. In a competitive market, we can have the features we want without the government having to decide what features those should be, which always causes problems. Verizon can strip wifi out of your phone because they know you're not going to switch to another carrier that supports phones with wifi. There are plenty of reasons why it wouldn't be easy for you to switch - and THAT'S the root of the problem.

  • Monopoly? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by LBArrettAnderson (655246) on Sunday July 26 2009, @02:19PM (#28828897)
    "Apple requested we release Latitude as a web application in order to avoid confusion with Maps on the iPhone."

    How does Apple get away with that as an excuse when Microsoft gets sued billions of dollars for simply including a web browser or media player with Windows? At least in Windows you can install a different browser!

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by LBArrettAnderson (655246)
        Yes, that's what I was asking. Microsoft didn't get sued for Windows being a monopoly, but because within Windows, WMP and IE were dominating. Within the iPhone's OS, not only is the built in maps program dominating, but it's very difficult (and against the contract) to install anything else.

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by wampus (1932)

      Nah, fanbois will be on to tell you why worse is better soon.

      • Re:First (Score:5, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 26 2009, @11:31AM (#28827725)
        Exactly! Google Latitude is just an inferior (and potentially confusing) version of the maps app. Sure the maps app might actually use Google Maps but it's the Apple extensions that really put the shine on it. It's absolutely right that this be limited to a web-app. Furthermore, who would want to allow an application to continuously run in the background? It opens up all sorts of angles of attack, it's dangerous, resource intensive, and Apple is right to disallow it. Apple know what's best for it's customers. They shound't, and they won't allow the likes of Google to undermine their customers' experience with the iPhone using shoddy, poorly designed applications.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by evilad (87480)

          6/10. Lost me at "shound't".

          • Re:First (Score:5, Funny)

            by ScrewMaster (602015) * on Sunday July 26 2009, @02:01PM (#28828773)

            Apple know what's best for it's customers. They shound't, and they won't allow the likes of Google to undermine their customers' experience with the iPhone using shoddy, poorly designed applications.

            You, sir, are the biggest idiot I have ever met online.

            Satire [wikipedia.org].

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by wampus (1932)

        Whoops, there's one now.

    • Re:Look into the crystal ball (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Chyeld (713439) <chyeld@noSpAM.newsguy.com> on Sunday July 26 2009, @11:45AM (#28827843)

      And this relates to Apple limiting their own customers from being able to do things that the other 'big' phones can do how? Sounds like the one a step behind is Apple. This IS about features that are being rolled out for other phones that Apple refuses to allow on the iPhone, the only one playing catchup is Apple here and from the article it's less catchup and more sit on your ass and take a nap.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by floodo1 (246910)
        Some call it catchup and others don't care. That is that most iPhone users are willing to accept some measure of freedom loss in order to gain a consistently high level of user experience. It gets so old to hear people whine about what Apple won't give them. It's obvious by now that what they give you is sufficient for a really significant number of people. We get it, it's not for you. I could sit here and complain about how GM doesn't make any cars I want, but if GM has happy customers and is doing well th

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by TooMuchToDo (882796)
      Right, which is why Apple can't run apps in the background. Someone at Apple was asleep at the switch with that decision.

        • Re:Look into the crystal ball (Score:4, Insightful)

          by dunkelfalke (91624) <dunkelfalke.speznas@de> on Sunday July 26 2009, @02:59PM (#28829237) Homepage

          How do Windows Mobile and Android manage running background apps perfectly fine? Does Apple have some inferiour programmers who cannot implement a proper scheduler?

          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            by adolf (21054)

            The iPhone is just a Darwin machine, which all of us here should know is based on FreeBSD. It, therefore, has a very good scheduler (one of FreeBSD's best features is that the system stays usable and responsive, seemingly no matter how high the load on the CPU is).

            Apple's own software multitasks just fine, where it is useful to do so. They just don't let third-party apps run in the background.

            My jailbroke iPod Touch (same hardware, more or less) works just fine as a multiuser Unix box, background apps and

            • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

              by RR (64484)

              The iPhone is just a Darwin machine, which all of us here should know is based on FreeBSD. It, therefore, has a very good scheduler.

              The iPhone is a Darwin machine, which all of us here should know is not based on FreeBSD, but Mach with a bunch of modifications and a BSD runtime layer on top. In fact, MacOS X has a pretty poor scheduler, as Anand et al have benchmarked and anybody's personal experience should corroborate.

              Which has little to do with Apple's decision to forbid third-party background processes.

                • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

                  by dunkelfalke (91624)

                  Then the scheduler on the iPhone is does suck because I extensively use multitasking on my Windows Mobile device (HTC Touch HD) and the battery life is descent.

            • Re:Look into the crystal ball (Score:5, Informative)

              by icebike (68054) on Sunday July 26 2009, @04:27PM (#28830159)

              Running an active TCP session for an IM client constantly would light up much more of the iPhone's hardware, and drain the battery that much faster.

              Well, not exactly....

              An active TCP session is EXACTLY what Apple's Push Notification Service [apple.com] uses.

              Its an extended version of ActivSync [microsoft.com], Licensed from Microsoft.

              It works like this:

              You open a TCP connection with an Apple Notification server, and shutdown the radio, leaving the connection open, by never explicitly closing it. With the radio down, the phone is Saving power.

              Periodically, you wake up the radio, check if the TCP socket is readable. If so, you read it, and notify the user, and optionally launch that application that the notification was destined for.

              If the socket failed, (timed out, network dropped, etc) you reestablish the socket.

              Since TCP timeout is usually on the order of 12 minutes or longer, this happens only about 5 times an hour.

              Checking socket readability takes just a tiny bit of power for a very very short time. So your radio is on for a few seconds every hour. (Which it is anyway, listening for incoming calls).

              Apple's push notification leverages this single socket connection to an unlimited number of applications in the iPhone, by having a single daemon watching the socket, signaling the target app, and notifying the user.

              It operates similar to InetD [about.com] in Linux, other than instead of waiting for new connections, it is watching existing ones. In fact, there is some discussion as to whether ActiveSync is even patentable because it is so obvious.

              And to be perfectly pedantic, Antennas do not consume any power when receiving.

    • Anyone who thinks Apple is going to sit on their laurels while Android eats its lunch simply doesn't know Steve Jobs. First, compare the quality of user experience between the iPhone and all of its rivals. The iPhone is so far ahead of anything currently on the market that Apple has the luxury of rejecting apps that would otherwise be useful for their customers.

      This is certainly open to debate. The iPhone is a fantastic consumer device and I think is in a leadership position in that segment. However, as a business tool it doesn't hold up well compared to some of the more mature offerings available. Apple understands the consumer customer and marketplace very well but the enterprise market has them stumped (fanbois will say "uninterested"). I don't think Android is there yet, either, but I think I'm starting to understand what they're going towards and the next few

        • - Yeah, after two years, in it's third version... After every decent phone has it already. - Ok, 2009-08-14, Olsztyn, Poland. Referee: first one from street who will agree. - Yeah, some function does not exists on iphone = bunch of crap, no real apple follower would want it. Not every program must automatically drain batteries, typically background processes sleep most of the time and do something only when new data comes.
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