Google Latitude app is now available for iPhone, joining the 9 million users worldwide, which have shared their location with friends. Since last year’s launch for the iPhone competitive market, Google Latitude has been concentrating on shaping the application to a simple tool, which can allow friends to stay in touch.

The main features of the application include the localization of the user’s friends, sharing the user’s locations to a series of comfortable people and sending emails, text messages or telephone calls.

Although Google Latitude for iPhone application can run in background, keeping the updating process continuous, the GPS-based tool is not harming the privacy of the user, as long as he/she consents the level of personal and detailed shared information. Also, the program can be shut down whenever it is necessary.

Google Latitude will be able for iPhone users on App Store in a very short time. Currently, Google is having a hard time trying to introduce its applications for iPhone, because of Apple’s restrictions.  And that’s just one thing for Google to worry about.  Early reviews of Google Latitude for the iPhone are less than stellar.  Robert Scoble has half-a-dozen reasons why the app is breaking for him, while Read/WriteWeb’s Sarah Perez calls it outright disappointing.

On the flip side, Google was able to release their Google Maps for Android, bringing 3D and offline access with the new version. The novelties brought by Google Maps involve a much more simple design of the application and less bandwidth and storage usage.

In the meanwhile, the competition on the smartphone market is as fierce as ever – The Nielsen Company reported statistics for 2010 which indicate that almost 70% of smart handset users are utilizing their OS tools and apps. 30% of the smartphone users are owning iPhone, while at BlackBerry OS telephone are used by 25% of the U.S. mobile market. The encouraging news for OS developers is that the figures are very dynamic and are also predicted to increase.