Google Latitude Now Available on the iPhone, iPad

Google Maps was a built-in applicaiton in the iPhone since the 1st version back in the year 2007. All these years, while other phones running OSes like Android or Symbian enjoyed Google Latitude - a friend locator-tracking feature as part of Google Maps, Apple had rejected the iPhone version of the app previously. Now, you can download the newest version of the Latitude app on all recent iOS devices like the iPhone 3GS (sorry iPhone 3G users), iPhone 4, iPod Touch 3rd and 4th generation and the iPad. It will require your iDevice to have iOS 4.0 or above installed. 

With Latitude, your friends (ideally, people you know rather well) can know your current location on a Google map. Latitude lets you share your location in the background, even when the application is closed or your device screen is locked. As a measure for your privacy, you can share only city-level location, hide your location or turn off background updating at any time. It may sound creepy to some, but a few could also find it useful. Consider that you are reaching some unknown place where your friend has already reached - thus that person could turn on Latitude, and you just have to navigate to them. 

Check it out on the Apple iTunes website here.

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Apple Sued for Updates making Phones Unusable

Every time Apple releases a major iOS update, older iPhone and iPod touch owners get disappointed. One such disgruntled person - Bianca Wofford from San Diego has filed a class action lawsuit against Apple for false advertising, unfair and deceptive business practices by encouraging iPhone 3G users to download iOS 4. Apparently, Wofford stated in the suit that the iOS 4 software update "rendered the iPhone 3G devices virtually unusable, constantly slowed, crashed or frozen".

Apple had released iOS 4.0 software udpate back in June and stated that a few new features like multi-tasking won t work on iPhone 3G. Wofford's lawyers wrote in the lawsuit (PDF) - "The true fact of the matter is that the iOS 4 is a substantial 'downgrade' for earlier iPhone devices and renders many of them virtually useless iBricks."

Wofford contended that not allowing iPhone 3G downgrade from iOS 4 to iOS 3.x was Apple's attempt to willfully manipulated consumers into purchasing the iPhone 3GS or iPhone 4. And due to the iOS 4 update, Wofford claimed that her iPhone 3G had gone from 99 percent reliability to "about 20 percent functionality".

Back in July, an Apple spokeswoman had acknowledged that the company was aware of the lag in performance of iPhone 3G post iOS 4 update and would be working on a fix. At the September 4 event keynote, Apple CEO Steve Jobs noted that the bug that lead to poor performance of iPhone 3G with iOS 4.0 would be solved in the iOS 4.1 firmware which was released on September 8.

The complaint filed in San Diego County requires an approval from a judge to gain class action status. Wofford, in the complaint, stated, "Apple has falsely, intentionally and repeatedly represented to owners and consumers of the iPhone 3G that its new operating system for the device, iOS4, was of a nature, quality, and a significant upgrade for the functionality of all iPhone devices, when in fact, the installation and use of the iOS4 on iPhone 3G resulted in the opposite - a device with little more use than that of a paperweight."

Apple iOS 3.0 update totally left out iPhone first generation and left many dissatisfied. Users who updated their iPhone 3G phones with iOS 4.0 weren't happy with the performance. The iOS 4.2 update is due later in this month and it better improve the performance of the iPhone 3G.

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160by2.com Launches Free SMS App for iPhone

Popular free SMS website 160by2.com has launched its very own iPhone app. Their website allowed people to send SMSs from their website via the computer or the mobile phone (via a mobile-optimized site). The app will allow direct access to sending free SMSs across borders, and within too. Another advantage of using the app over the mobile site is that you can select contacts from the ones stored in the phone directly. It works only in a few countries at the moment; namely U.S., UK, Canada, Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, UAE, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. All these countries can send SMSs free to cell-phones in India. 

iPhone users in India can also send free SMSs to anybody in India. The funny thing is that it isn't clear whether Indian users can send free texts to other countries. This service is ad-based, so 80 characters from the typical 160 in a single SMS are available for you to type. The rest 80 are given to advertisers to append contextual ads afterwards. The International SMS facility sounds lucrative to people residing abroad and wanting to communicate with the people of India. But with local SMSs, most post-paid operators these days have lucrative plans that have a couple of hundred SMSs free. Some even have an absurd 15,000 SMS per month limit. So, I really wonder if many people will be keen on using this app on a day-to-day basis for sending local SMSs.

The service does have its share of cons; other than the ads after every message you send, the message sender name is 160by2.com. So, the receiver cannot quickly hit reply - one would have to create a new message. So, do you think this app is worth keeping in your iPhone? Download it from here and let us know.

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FarmVille out on Apple iPad

Habitual farmers now need not rue the absence of Zynga's wildly popular FarmVille on the iPad, because it's out now for free on Apple's app store. This port to iPad comes after the release for the iPhone platform in June this year, where it was very successful. Even that would work on the iPad but this version is HD and customized to be played on the iPad.

The gameplay is the same as it is on the Facebook as well as the iPhone version, albeit with a touch interface tailored for the iPad. According to Zynga, push notifications will be used to alert farmers to the health of their crops.

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White iPhone 4 gets spotted in New York

The elusive white iPhone 4 that a lot of people are waiting for has been spotted in New York. The guys over at Pocket-lint caught hold of a guy who was seen carrying around a white iPhone 4, which at the moment, is as rare as spotting a penguin in Africa. 

Turns out the guy managed to get hold of his white iPhone 4 through someone who obviously has good contacts with the people at Apple's headquarters in Cupertino (or presumably works there himself) and as it turns out there are a lot more where that came from.

The reason, according to the person who owns the said iPhone, why you cannot just walk into an Apple Store and buy a white iPhone 4 for yourself is because Apple is having problems matching the shade of the white colored parts from its two suppliers. We are talking about the Home button and the front panel of the phone.

So that's apparently the reason for the MIA status of the white iPhone 4. It's because Apple wants to make sure you get the same, uniform shade of white across the device. While that's awfully nice of them, we are assuming most people probably won't care less if the home button is slightly darker or lighter than the rest of the phone, that is if they spot that it looks different in the first place. 

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