Google Latitude, the popular online service that allows users to track where their friends go through the use of GPS enabled phones has made its way to the iPhone albeit in the form of a web App.

The web App takes advantage of the new Geolocation feature in Firmware 3.0 that allows Safari to tap in to the iPhone’s location service mechanism. Google has incorporated most of the functionality available in the Android version of Latitude such as privacy controls and contact information. However, Apple does not allow background processing which forces Google Latitude to be implemented within Safari. There is no automatic updating but every time the online App is loaded, that user’s location is automatically updated. An excerpt from the official Google 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.

You can try Google Latitude for your iPhone by pointing Safari to google.com/latitude.

Via: The iPhone Blog