Google Latitude Now Available for iPhone, Sort Of

The web application provides all of the core functionality of Latitude such as the ability to view the location of your friends on a map and being able to modify your privacy settings so that you can control how your location is shared.

You’ll also find basic Search and Directions functionality to help you get around the World. And just like the Google Maps iPhone client, you can press the “blue dot” to be taken to your approximate current location on the map with My Location, thanks to Safari now supporting the W3C Geo-location API.

Now Google has yet to release it as a local application for the iPhone, but if you want the ability to launch the application directly from your home screen just visit http://www.google.com/latitude in Safari and add a bookmark to the home screen (by tapping the + icon > Add to Home Screen > Add).

I guess this is a start for iPhone users to have access to what BlackBerry users already have, but hopefully in the future Google will offer Latitude freely through the App Store.