Cupertino working on its very own Foursquare?
Is Apple planning to get into the social location apps game? Documents published today by the US Patent and Trademark Office hint that it is.
The patent concerns iGroups, which is described as "An iPhone Social App". Patently Apple, which revealed the patent, explains its core purpose:
"The idea is to allow groups of friends or colleagues attending such events as a concert, a tradeshow, business meeting, wedding or rally to stay in communication with each other as a group to share information or reactions to live events as they're occurring."
Two examples are expanded upon: a rock concert, and Apple's own World Wide Developer Conference. iGroups would get its own icon on the iPhone - so would presumably be a native app built into the OS.
It's an intriguing prospect, and one that may raise eyebrows within the various social location startups building userbases on iPhone - such as Foursquare, Gowalla and MyTown.
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Even so, iGroups' focus on private groups is somewhat different to the 'checkin' system of these social location apps, so perhaps there's no direct threat.
