In connection with the launch of iOS 5 and iCloud, this fall Apple is planning to open a new social network for users of iOS-devices. The network is expected to resemble Loopt and Google’s Latitude , reports 9to5 Mac.
According to AppleInsider, the new project is called Find My Friends. It will contain the standard features of social networks such as Following, Pending and Accepting. There is also reference to features like “status” and “block”.
AppleInsider managed to obtain the information about the functions of Find My Friends from Apple-written MobileMe/iCloud HTML code. This means that work on the project is going one for a long time now (since the existence of MobileMe). It is assumed that the launch of service has already been postponed several times. Reference about the social network was found in patch iOS 4.3, at the beginning of this year.
It is said that when connected to Find My Friends, iOS-device owners will be able to see the friends list. It will also have many other functions, including the blocking of unwanted contacts, as in Twitter, informs 9to5 Mac with reference to a patent application filed by Apple in 2010
In this patent, adds AppleInsider, the company has described the technology to search for friends by GPS-coordinates and the ability to instantly know about their movements using technology Push Notifications, which is used for event notification. One of the most interesting features of the network promises to be the integration with cloud Photo Stream. This service allows you to take photos from your mobile device and then send them to the cloud making them visible to other devices connected to iCloud. It is also said that these photographs can be published on your Find my Friends profile, as well as appear on the map.
It is expected that Apple will launch a similar service Video Stream, which will perform the same tasks, but with video. However, so far it has not been officially announced.
As of June 2011, Apple has sold over 200 million iOS-devices, and as projected by Canaccord Genuity, by the end of next year, users of iOs-devices will exceed 400 million. So, looking at these figures, experts say that starting a social network of its own is quite a logical step by Apple Inc. In September 2010, the company added a sort of social feature Ping in iTunes 10, which allowed users to form groups based upon music interests.
