Location Offers More with Google Latitude API

Internet giant Google has just released a new solution for one of its popular services, Google Latitude. On Wednesday, the company announced the launch of Google Latitude API, meant to enable users do more with their Latitude location, by re-using it with any applications or services. Mobile phone users can already share location with friends, keep a history of it and more, but it seems that a wider range of possibilities should be available for them, and Google Latitude API was designed to offer access to them.

According to a recent post on Google Mobile Blog, there are a great deal of solutions that can be built upon location, and the new API should offer third-parties the option to come up with their own ideas. Here's what the blog post notes: “Developers could, for example, build apps or services for:
- Thermostats that turn on and off automatically when you’re driving towards or away from home.
- Traffic that send alerts if there’s heavy traffic ahead of you or on a route you usually take based on your location history
- Your credit card accounts to alert you of potential fraud when a purchase is made far from where you actually are.
- Photo albums so your vacation photos appear on a map at all the places you visited based on your location history.“

However, the main focus remains on enabling people stay in control of their location, so that they can use it when, where and how they choose. One will be able to grant access to developers to his/her location, while having the chance to see what access is requested. Moreover, if one changes heart, he/she can easily revoke access from any developers straight from the Google Account’s personal settings. The same as with Latitude, the new solution enables users to control who sees their location.

“We’ve also learned that making your phone’s continuous location available in the background is tricky to do accurately and efficiently -- just imagine your phone’s battery life if several apps were continuously getting your location in different ways? With this in mind, we built a free and open Latitude API that lets the third-party developers you choose start using your updated location in new ways without reinventing the wheel,” the blog post continues.

Developers should head over to code.google.com/apis/latitude to kick off and read the available documentation. Latitude users can check on the existing Latitude apps here, while waiting for additional solutions to emerge.