“Do More with Google Latitude and Your Location Using the New Latitude API”

We wanted to give you even more ways to use your location, so today we’re announcing the Google Latitude API – an easy and safe way for you to use and reuse your Latitude location with any apps or services that you can imagine!

Yahoo did that with Fire Eagle, and failed (or didn’t try) to get it adopted. No doubt that Google is in a better position to make it, especially with Android and the new multitasking affordances for geolocation in iPhone OS 4.0.

With the current state of Apple’s relationship with Google, you have to wonder if we’ll get the functionality set up in the OS itself soon. (Google will have no problem submitting an app that updates your Latitude info, but you’ll always have to check the app is in your multitasking tray, and hasn’t been shut down to make room for a big video or game or whatever.)

That may be somewhat moot, though, because I can’t find in a cursory glance at the API any way to subscribe to a user’s location information — only the possibility of requesting it at any point in time. Which, if I’m not missing anything, makes the API somewhat useless for many use cases (until they add that capability).