Google has launched Latitude for Apple's iPhone and iPod touch, a location-based social-networking Web application running in the Safari browser.

The Google Latitude app includes basic search and directions functionality to help iPhone users get from place to place. The app also lets iPhone users see the location of their friends on a map and modify their privacy settings so that they control how their location is shared and with whom.

"In fact, if my friends and colleagues back in London haven't yet noticed my absence, they'll see in Latitude that I'm currently vacationing on the beach in Australia," said Mat Balez, product manager of the mobile team at Google, in a blog post. "Hi guys, remember me!?"

Just like Google Maps for mobile client apps -- and more recently on desktop Google Maps -- Latitude lets users press the "blue dot" to be taken to their approximate current location on the map with My Location, now that Safari supports the W3C Geolocation API.

To try Google Latitude, consumers can type Google.com/latitude into their iPhone's browser.

Google stressed in its blog post that, if iPhone users want the experience of launching the app directly from their home screen, they can add a bookmark to the home screen by opening Latitude in Safari and tapping the + icon > Add to Home Screen > Add.

"We worked closely with Apple to bring Latitude to the iPhone in a way Apple thought would be best for iPhone users," Mr. Balez said. "After we developed a Latitude application for the iPhone, Apple requested we release Latitude as a Web application in order to avoid confusion with Maps on the iPhone, which uses Google to serve maps tiles.

"Google, like Apple, continues to push for improvements in Web browser functionality," he said. "Now that iPhone 3.0 allows Safari to access location, building the Latitude Web app was a natural next step.

"In the future, we will continue to work closely with Apple to deliver useful applications -- some of which will be native apps on the iPhone, such as Earth and YouTube, and some of which will be Web apps, like Gmail and Latitude."