iLounge

By Jesse Hollington

Applications Editor, iLounge (Google+)
Published: Thursday, May 28, 2009
News Category: Mix

During its keynote address at the Google I/O conference, Google demonstrated its Latitude personal location mapping and sharing service running on the iPhone. The Google Latitude service was launched earlier this year for the Android, Blackberry, Symbian S60 and Windows Mobile platforms, with an iPhone version conspicuously absent by its omission. Google reportedly is waiting for the iPhone 3.0 software release as it is using a browser-based application to provide location-based services. Versions of the iPhone OS prior to 3.0 do not provide access to the iPhone’s GPS or location services from the Safari browser. The Latitude web application for the iPhone will run directly in the Safari browser, using similar HTML 5 capabilities to those used by Google’s recently upgraded GMail web application. [via TechCrunch]

The New Yorker Cover painted using an iPhone app has resulted in a surge in popularity for the Brushes app which was used to create the cover. Steve Sprang, the software developer who created Brushes has reported a significant boost in sales after the news of his app being used to create the popular magazine cover. Sprang noted that this week his application had its highest selling day since it was first released last August, with 2,700 copies sold in a single day, exceeding sales generated even by Apple’s own promotions. [via The New York Times]

Unisys Corporation, a developer of high-end enterprise mainframe solutions announced that it is adding a range of enhancements to its ClearPath family of mainframe servers to help to provide support for specialized applications and “integration of devices such as iPhones and iPods,” tacitly acknowledging that the iPhone is spreading more widely into the corporate and enterprise space. [via MacDailyNews]

Some developers have reported that the international distribution of iPhone applications is not being handled efficiently by Apple, with many apps appearing for sale on only some international App Stores, or taking an unreasonable amount of time to appear in other countries. [via MacNN]