Apple Developing Social Media “iGroups” App
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Coming soon: one more social media app to add to your iPhone! Apple has received a patent from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office showing that the company is developing a location-based social-networking app for the iPhone called “iGroups.” This is its fourth social media-related patent application to become public this year, according to Patently Apple, a Web site tracking Apple’s patent applications.
iGroups will allow iPhone users to form secure social networks and connect with people in their vicinity – for example, at meetings or conferences. The goal is to provide a social-networking service while maintaining individual privacy through a cryptographic key generation system.
“During private or public events (e.g., concert, tradeshows, business meetings, weddings, rallies), a typical individual may have many brief contacts with individuals for which they would like to have further correspondence post event,” states the patent, titled “Group Formation Using Anonymous Broadcast Information.”
iGroups will also work in conjunction with Apple’s MobileMe. The patent states that if a user in the group doesn’t have a device with “true positioning technology,” MobileMe steps in and provides a “virtual GPS” to inform that user of the locations of others in the group.
After Google Buzz was released, we had a feeling that Apple would be next to jump on the geolocating bandwagon. Didn't you read that New York Times article about the crazy competition between Google and Apple?
iPhone users out there: Is iGroups something that you would use? Let us know by commenting below!
(Photo credit: Adrian Ilie/ C.C. 2.0)
