Apple working on Mobile Social Networking?

ACCORDING to recent reports, Apple has recently made a patent request suggesting they may be working on a mobile social networking application to enable iPhone users form groups based on their locations.

Apple's request with the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office is entitled "Group Formation Using Anonymous Broadcast Information", and describes a system allowing mobile devices in close proximity to discover each other and form a group, which the document claims would be useful at events like concerts, conferences, meetings, rallies and weddings.

"User interfaces, filters and search engines can be provided to the users to enable users to search and manage groups. The groups can be used with various applications - e.g. calendars, address books, mail, instant messaging - to provide additional content and services to the users. If the geographic location of the group at the contact time is known, then members of the group can be targeted to receive location-based services (LBS) and content," one extract from the patent request reads.

This development has lead to speculation that Apple will target location-aware mobile applications, such as Foursquare. Meanwhile, the location space is hotting up as social networking and microblogging service Twitter now lets users specify a geographic location for tweets and Facebook is reportedly working on a location feature for its social networking site as well.

Leave your comments:
(Please note all comments are subject to an approval process before publication, no HTML or scripts allowed.)