Is Apple iGroups, iPhone OS 4 & Quattro Wireless, The Next Location-Based Social Network?
Is Apple considering building its own location-based social network the likes of Foursquare and Gowalla? A lot has been written about its recent filing of a patent application for a social networking application called iGroups. The question is – Are they too late to the party – Or based on their new operating system, do they have the best fighting chance of becoming the dominant player in the location-service space? It appears with the summer release of their new OS 4 for the iPhone, coupled with their recent acquisition of the advertising agency Quattro Wireless, Apple is laying the groundwork to jump into the LBS ‘Wild West’ with all guns blazing. Not only will iPhones new OS offer quicker and better Internet connectivity, their new ad platform will allow Apple to take advantage of advertising that can be tied to their iGroups location-based social network. It delivers a next-generation framework for easily and quickly launching web sites that can pull content directly from a publish
