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Google Latitude released for iPhone

Posted by Patrick Lambert Categories: Social Networking, Free Apps,

Google has been in the location game for years now, but services like Foursquare and Facebook Places have been producing buzz faster, in part based on their mobile apps. Google has had their service, Google Latitude, integrated in Android handsets for some time now, and they've finally released an iPhone app to compete with the other already established players. With 9 million active users, mostly because it's baked into their Google Maps product, they have a somewhat credible offering. So far, Latitude has been mostly a passive service that people use when looking for local search results, or browsing a map. This is a model that's much different than Foursquare, Gowalla, and Facebook Place, which are all about checking in to a specific place rather than just showing a physical location.

The Latitude iPhone app keeps using that passive model, where the app shares your location automatically with your friends, even in the background, as long as you allowed them to view where you are. You can also browse the map and see where they are in real time. It can be argued that such a passive system is the wave of the future, as people tire of constantly checking into a location app, but it sure doesn't produce the same amount of hype for the service, so it remains to be seen which service people will decide to share their locations with.

Read More | Google Latitude

Gallery: Google Latitude released for iPhone


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Google Voice app finally approved, appears in the App Store

Posted by Patrick Lambert Categories: Productivity, App Store News, New Apps, Free Apps,

Google Voice is a popular service within the US, providing a single phone number to anyone which can then connect to land lines or cellphones, offers visual voice mail, forwarding, SMS, and more. Up until now, it's been easily integrated only on Android devices, while people wanting to access the service on the iPhone were left out in the cold, until a few third-party apps started appearing last month. In fact, Apple famously denied (or rather, "didn't approve") the Google Voice app back in 2009, and it's been sitting there in the App Store review queue for 16 months. However, things changed today when the official Google Voice app was finally made available in the App Store. From it, you can make free calls using the service, access your voicemail, send and receive SMS for free, and more. Of course since this service is only available in the US, so is the app. You need to setup a Google Voice account to use it, but both that and the app itself, are free.

Read More | Google Voice App

Gallery: Google Voice app finally approved, appears in the App Store


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