Google has now slipped in some news about Latitude, its social location-sharing service. Originally launched in February 2009, the service will now be retired on August 9 this year, according to the official announcement. On the heels of its recently updated Maps app for Android , Google may be planning to split up Latitude's features between the Google+ mobile app and the android OS.
In the information pageon the Google website, the company explains that Latitude is being removed from the latest version of Google Maps for android, while the Latitude app for iPhone will also be cleared away from the App Store. The Latitude API will be also be withdrawn, which means that any apps that make use of it to get the user’s current location and location history will no longer be able to do so .
Google Latitude, when it came out in 2009, allowed users to see their friends on a map, provided they agreed to share the information, with the user’s location details being constantly updated. Similar to what Foursquare now does, Latitude was the best way to get real-time location details about their friends.
Google Latitude also recorded the user's location at all times, which allowed fora detailed map that included every placethe user may have been to, on a given day, being plotted out on a map. The nature of its features did limit the number of users that were interested in latitude, though.
The limited interest in the service stemmed from the fact that most people were not too keen on sharing real-time location details with even the closest of their friends. While the news of the app’s demise may not find many tears being shed, unlike the uproar that the recently put-down Google Reader caused, it seems like Google is planning to keep most of Latitude’s features in slightly different forms.
Google+ for Android has had map-based location sharing fora while now, although thefriend list that users had on Latitude will not be importedif users want to shift. Users can continue to opt forlocation details sharing with select friends, or with any circle of contacts that they may want.
The company has also said that this feature will be seen on the iOS Google+ app soon as well. Users who have used Latitude’s location check-in feature, which is reminiscent of Foursquare, should easily be able to work their way around the feature in Google+, and the user's check-in history will also be imported for the user.
The location history feature that Latitude boasted will, for now, only be available for Android users. Users will have to find "Enable location history" in the Google Settings app in the Android app stray. It is still unconfirmed if the Google+ iOS app will address the location history feature for iOS users, though. All said and done, clearing up Latitude from the Google portfolio was an inevitable move on the company’s part, primarily because the app did not find many takers who may have, quite frankly, found the app a little creepy to begin with.
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