Google Latitude to shut down on August 9th

It's true that Nokia Maps has been all-consuming on Symbian in the last few years, yet many people remember enjoying Google Maps on the platform back in 2007-2010. The Google Maps client from that era still (mostly) works on modern Symbian devices, in fact, with one of the most interesting features being its integration of Google Latitude, a way of finding out where your friends are. The service was arguably a little ahead of its time, coming before ubiquitous cellular data, meaning that many ended up turning it off for fear of extra data and GPS drain of their precious battery life. Some Symbian users do still use Latitude, I'm sure, which is why I wanted to note that, as quoted below, Google is terminating the service as of a month from today.

From the official Google Maps blog:

One important change you should know about is that Latitude and check-ins are no longer part of the new Google Maps app, and will be retired from older versions on August 9. We understand some of you still want to see your friends and family on a map, which is why we've added location sharing and check-ins to Google+ for Android (coming soon to iOS). More details about Latitude and check-in changes can be found in our help center. 

From the Help Centre:

Google Latitude will be retired on August 9th, 2013. Products being retired include Google Latitude in Google Maps for Android, Latitude for iPhone, the Latitude API, the public badge, the iGoogle Gadget, and the Latitude website at maps.google.com/latitude.

What does this mean for me?

• You’ll no longer be able to share your location using Latitude after retirement.
• We haven’t included Latitude as a feature in the latest version of Google Maps for mobile on Android and we’ll remove Latitude for iPhone on the App Store.

• Applications that use the Latitude API will no longer be able to access your location data, including Location History data, on Google servers. However, these non-Google applications may continue to store data they’ve already accessed. Please contact the developer of these applications for more information.

• Location History - As long as you don’t delete your Location History, you can find it in the Location History dashboard.
• Friends list - your Latitude friends list will be deleted.

It's somewhat telling that Google's older mobile applications aren't mentioned by name here, but if the back end for Latitude goes then so must the functionality on older clients.