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Apple’s Working on a New Social Location App Called iGroups

By Zee Follow Zee on twitter on March 18th, 2010

Location is heating up and Apple wants in on the action.

Another gem from the United States Patent and Trademark Office has been uncovered by the team at Patently Apple. This time it appears Apple is working on a social networking app called iGroups.

The app is likely to tie in with your iPhone and MobileMe and will make it possible for groups of users to share information around events. Events could include concerts, tradeshows, conferences, business meetings, weddings etc..

According to the patent, the app will be able to detect users location and group them according to their GPS co-ordinates.

Of course, this is likely to compete head on with other geo-location apps like Gowalla and Foursquare, as well as New York based Hot Potato who focus exclusively on discussion around live events.

Interestingly, AppleInsider has also uncovered news that Apple is working on a Walkie Talkie like feature for use with the iPhone. The technology “could allow iPhone users to transmit data — such as simple text messages — to each other over voice channels, forgoing a reliance wireless carriers’ backend servers, in a manner similar to Nextel’s walkie-talkie feature.” This would fit neatly in with plans for a geolocation based group discussion service.

Exciting stuff this location malarkey. :)

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About the Author

Zee

Based in London, Zee is Editor in Chief of The Next Web. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook.

Discussion - 23 Comments/Pingbacks RSS feed for comments on this post

  1. Ben Werdmuller says March 18, 2010
    Reply

    This could be very big indeed: location-sensitive ad-hoc communities. Think of the consequences at a conference or trade show, for example – the problem that things like LinkedIn Bump have awkwardly tried to solve could have a very elegant solution. I'll be interested to see how they manage privacy.

  3. Travis Campbell says March 18, 2010
    Reply

    Thanks for this information. It is interesting to see location based services and mobile marketing ramping up. Any indications when it will be available? Any mention of cross platform?

  4. Zee says March 18, 2010
    Reply

    yeah agreed. My only concern is Apple aren't exactly social experts…they haven't exactly got a track record

  5. Ben Werdmuller says March 18, 2010
    Reply

    No – and their locked-down mindset for products doesn't really fit the nature of ad-hoc communities. The location based group “people in my industry near me” becomes markedly less useful when you replace it with “people in my industry near me who have an iPhone 3GS.”

  6. lynndoogle says March 18, 2010
    Reply

    Oh wow, that sounds like its going to be interesting. Good idea.

    Lou
    http://www.anon-vpn.net.tc

  7. premedios says March 18, 2010
    Reply

    Interesting!

  8. aktiveradio says March 19, 2010
    Reply

    They should call it iFloc

  9. Samriddhi says March 19, 2010
    Reply

    It would be interesting to see how Apple executes their first social application. They are secretive by nature and this is completely a new dimension for them.

  10. Samriddhi says March 19, 2010
    Reply

    It would be interesting to see how Apple executes their first social application. They are secretive by nature and this is completely a new dimension for them.

  11. Tchad says March 19, 2010
    Reply

    The patent was filed in September of 2008. By itself, this patent surfacing means nothing. Link is to USPTO patent application.

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