Apple Patent Details iGroups Proximity Based Social App

Apple has detailed a proximity based social app called iGroups in a new patent filing unearthed today.

According to Patently Apple, Apple's iGroup will be a new service that will work on your iPhone and likely work with MobileMe. 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.

The technology behind the new iGroup social networking applications works with a very sophisticated cryptographic key generation system to ensure security and privacy of your communications. Interestingly, the patent states that if one of the devices in your group happens to be without true positioning technology, it appears that Apple's MobileMe service will provide some sort of "virtual GPS" capability to that user so that they could be aware of the locations of others in the group. Apple's patent provides us with example scenarios of both a concert and WWDC event to clarify the service.

iGroups Usage Example:
A profile is displayed summarizing information about the Group, including the name, date formed, a description, a number of unread emails from Group members, a number of scheduled calendar events for the Group. Other information can be provided as desired.

In addition to the profile, several option buttons can be presented. A Settings option can be used to enter a settings page to allow the user to set various parameters related to the Group, such as communication parameters related to calendars, contacts, SMS and mail services. A Calendar option launches a calendar application or service which can provide a calendar populated with calendar events related to the Group and include tools for managing calendar events. An Address Book option can be used to launch and address book application or service which can provide and address book that can be populated with contact information of Group members. An SMS option can be used to launch an SMS application or service for sending instant messages to Group members, including broadcast messages to all members. A Mail option launches a mail application or service for emailing members.

In some implementations, tokens could be used to track the movements of a device. In such an embodiment, the tokens are like "cookie crumbs" that are left behind at different geographic locations. A trusted service could use the tokens to construct a map display with placemarks identifying geographic locations of contact events. The placemarks can be shared with other users.

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