Apple’s iPhone media event today played host to a number of cool announcements, including the new Siri artificial-intelligence powered personal assistant and the iPhone 4S. Apple also introduced a new feature of iOS 5 called Find My Friends, which can help you locate other iPhone, iPod touch & iPad users in real-time.
Find My Friends basically helps you keep track of the people who are important to you. Sharing your location is optional, and you can control who you share your location information with, and for how long. There are also important privacy and parental control options to help manage who location information is shared with.
Find my friends will become available when iCloud launches on October 12th. More information can be found in Apple’s official press release, a portion of which describes the new service:
Find My Friends is a new app available as a free download from the App Store that lets you easily share your location with people who are important to you. Friends and family appear on a map so you can quickly see where they are. Find My Friends also lets you temporarily share your location with a group of friends, whether it’s for a couple of hours for a dinner or a couple of days on a camping trip; when the time is up, the sharing ends. With Find My Friends, you get a notification every time you get a new friend request and if you give them permission, they can see your location. With a simple tap you can hide your location. Parental controls help you manage how your child uses Find My Friends.
Apple has also set up a new webpage dedicated to Find My iPhone, which details the features of Apple’s new Find My Friends feature.
