Apple gets Orwellian with Places patent
Apple has filed a patent called Places, helping users locate people from their iPhones via GPS
Published on Feb 25, 2011
Apple has filed a patent allowing you to locate people using your iPhone's GPS.
The Places patent was filed under the following International Classes: computer hardware, education and entertainment services, according to Patently Apple.
The basic idea behind the ‘social networking’ service is that iPhone/iPad users will be able to locate people (i.e: their friends) by using GPS.
The Places services will be related to a social networking site, which the mobile device will presumably access. Whether this site will feature profiles, like on Facebook, is unknown at present.
Will Apple tie Ping into Places as well? We’re not sure, but it surely couldn’t hurt the Twitter-esque service.
Places could feature in the next iteration of Apple’s iOS platform, although nothing has been officially confirmed by Apple and isn’t likely to be anytime soon either.
Guess we’ll have to wait until March 2 to see if Places has made the cut.