Ever since the release of the first beta versions of iOS 4.3, we learned about Find My Friends, a new social network that Apple was building for iDevice users. From February until now, the Apple company managed to integrate Find My Friends into MobileMe and iCloud, but it seems that the social network could be put in the company's archives and forgotten forever. Those from 9to5Mac they discovered references in the HTML code of MobileMe/iCloud indicating that Apple has integrated the Find My Friends network directly into these online services.
Find My Friends would be a service similar to Google Latitude, meaning it would allow users to find their friends on the map wherever they are. The social network would be based on profiles probably linked to Apple IDs and users would "follow" each other exactly like on Twitter. Followed users can share their location on the map and those who follow them can always know where they are. Practically, when we open the Maps application, we will know the locations of all our friends and we will be able to find them very simply and easily. However, Find My Friends is not limited to locations because Apple is even experimenting with photo and video sharing services. The system is integrated in iCloud and using PhotoStream would allow the sharing of photos exactly as on any other social network, and in the case of video clips, the sharing would be done in a similar way, but the clips must first be uploaded to Apple's servers.
Find My iPhone was discovered on the MobileMe and iCloud sites, but the service only refers to MobileMe, and from here it was concluded that Apple could give up on it. The problem is that PhotoStream referred to MobileMe before it was launched and still works with iCloud, so it is very possible that Find My Friends will be moved to the new Apple service. For Americans, the functions would be useful, they would compete with Google Latitude, but it remains to be seen how popular it will be in Europe, for example.
