Oops: Google Accidentally Posts Latitude App to App Store

Posted 12/08/2010 at 3:49pm | by Ryan Whitwam

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There is probably an intern somewhere at Google in a spot of trouble today. TechCrunch noted that an official Google latitude app was posted to the Japanese Apple App Store, but it appeared to be the English language version. No sooner did people take note of this surprise launch, Google pulled the app down without a word. Latitude is a location tracking and sharing service, but it requires background GPS use, so it was only viable after iOS 4.0.

That's not to say Google didn't try before. This all goes back to the Google Voice debacle of 2009 when Apple rejected the Google Voice app on iPhone. Google said at the time they were launching an HTML5 web app for Latitude because Apple refused to even look at a Latitude app. Now here we have a very stealthy launch of an approved Latitude app, only to see it immediately removed.

Expect Google to actually make the app available for everyone at some point in the not too distant future. By all accounts, the app was done. Anyone care to take a guess at what's going on here?

Image via TechCrunch