In a statement on their support site, Google has announced that the Latitude service will be discontinued on August 9th. As an alternative to using Latitude to broadcast your location to friends, Google has advised that Google+ should be used – ‘You can share your location with your friends on Google+ using the Google+ Android app.’
From the statement on the Latitude support page, it appears that all instances of the service will be turned off, including APIs which will affect any third party applications which use the service. The statement reads :
Google Latitude will be retired on August 9th, 2013. Products being retired include Google Latitude in Google Maps for Android, Latitude for iPhone, the Latitude API, the public badge, the iGoogle Gadget, and the Latitude website at maps.google.com/latitude.
The move away from Latitiude as a location sharing service and the push towards Google+ is not surprising – I’ve been using check-ins and location sharing from the Google+ Android App for a while now – in fact if I recall correctly, the last time I used Latitude was on the HTC Dream and I don’t think I`m alone.
Do you use or did you use Google Latitude?
