Google Retires Latitude, Pushes Google+ Location Sharing Features

With the announcement of the new Google Maps app release today came news that Google will be retiring Latitude in all of its various forms on August 9.

The tool that allowed Google Maps users to find friends and share their location will no longer be available. No more Latitude for Google Maps on Android, Latitude for iPhone, Latitude API, Latitude public badge or iGoogle Gadget. The Latitude website at maps.google.com/latitude is also being shut down.

Retiring Latitude is part of Google’s efforts to push Google+ and the location sharing features now included in Google+ for Android. While only Android users currently have access to Google+ location sharing, Google claims it will soon to be added to Google+ for iOS.

According to Google, anyone who continues using various versions of Latitude will no longer be able to see or manage friends, and their friend lists will be deleted. Also, any third party applications that use the Latitude API will not be able to access a user’s location data, although they will be able to continue storing the data already gathered. All automatic check-ins via Latitude will be disabled.