Google's friend-tracking feature, Latitude, which was released earlier this year and made available to Android phones last month, has Thursday onwards become available as an iPhone web app.

Google's location-based service (LBS) - which offers competition to Brightkite and Loopt - plots the pictures of the users' friends a Google map when they wish to share their location. As such, it allows users to add friends, view their location on a map, and send messages.

With the announcement of Google Latitude coming to the iPhone as a web app - though not as a native application, because of Apple's apprehensions - the users of the Apple device can access the feature by logging on to google. com/latitude to get started.

Upon being loaded, the Latitude becomes a tab on Google's mobile countenance - m. google. com.

The users can then click on their own icon on the list of contacts on the main interface to set their status and edit their privacy settings, from the three available options - "best available location," "only city-level location," and "hide from this friend."

Integrating with the Gmail contacts list, Latitude has a special icon to let users know which of their friends using Google Latitude are signed up already, so that they can interact with them.

The Latitude menu includes options for searching or clearing the map; viewing traffic; getting directions, and seeing a satellite view!