By now you've read all that is new, special, and, of course, missing from Apple's iPhone 3.0 software and SDK announcement. Most people I spoke to after yesterday's presentation thought Apple had hit all the key notes—all but one, that is. What was missing? Multitasking.
Initially, I discounted the fact that the iPhone still can't do more than one thing at a time. Perhaps I give Apple a pass on this because my cranky old Treo has the same problem. Plus, as I wondered aloud to a couple of industry counterparts, "How many consumers really care about the ability to do multiple things at once?" Most consumers I know are an analog bunch living in digital world. They browse the web, check e-mail, upload a photo from their camera, and then go back to e-mail and mail the photo. They don't do it all at once.
Apple's lack of multitasking capabilities is no big deal. Well, except that it is.
Just hours after sitting through Apple's whiz-bang session on the iPhone 3.0, I found myself at Googleplex, meeting with Google product managers who talked about everything from Gmail and Chrome to Google Earth and Mobile. Announced earlier this year, one of the latter's newest features is Latitude. Basically, it's Google's "Where you at?" feature. Put simply, it's a double opt-in system that lets you show people where you are and lets you see where your contacts (friends, family, and acquaintances) are in real time. It makes this connection via a location API in Google Gears and uses your phone's (or your PC's) GPS, cellular triangulation or WiFi to find you.
I like the concept of this feature. I can imagine a mother using this to keep track of her globetrotting son, without impinging on his personal space. His icon simply shows up on Google Maps. The best part of all this is that Latitude just plain works: Even if you're not actively accessing the app in Google Maps, Latitude is running in the background, telling the world (the people you opt to show) exactly where you are. Of course, "exactly" is a relative term since you can define whether people can see your location within meters, only at a city level, or you can hide yourself altogether.
During yesterday's announcement, Apple mentioned how Google Maps works with the updated iPhone OS. However, when Google listed the mobile platforms that support Latitude, including Blackberry, Symbian, Android, and Windows Mobile, the iPhone was noticeably absent.
"No iPhone support?" I asked.
Steve Lee, Product Manager for Google Latitude explained, "We have an iPhone version, working on that to make it available. One thing to note about iPhone version: The magical part of Latitude, even when it's in your pocket, it can report your location…It's not typical user behavior to pull out your phone out of your pocket and check in."
Lee continued, "On all those four platforms I mentioned, they allow applications from the background and multitask and report the location; and iPhone, that's not the case, and Apple just announced their 3.0 software and it appears that's still not the case. It's unfortunate for applications like Latitude."—
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