Yesterday we told you about a new Apple patent for a native social application called iGroups. Today, brings word of Apple’s move to bring native support to a strong application market; turn-by-turn navigation. An article in Patently Apple describes Cupertino’s plans for this as yet unnamed native navigation app.

While the app described is said to focus on alleviating the frustration of commuting workers, it of course could be used in any traveling circumstance. The user of the application would log in before departing in the morning and enter their forthcoming trip. Conceivably, regular movement like a morning commute along an established route could be saved or scheduled as a sort of recurring event. Along the way the application would analyse the route to suggest deviations that avoid traffic congestion. If the user did find themselves unavoidably trapped in gridlock, the application would reschedule appointments and meetings in the iPhone calendar to coincide with the adjusted arrival time it has calculated.

The sheer idea of such an app is brilliant, ambitious, and audacious. Not only would it trump a lot of navigation apps by the sheer fact that it came pre-installed on the iPhone, its ability to integrate useful functions outshines the rest. While the other big name navigation app companies are battling with each other over simple navigation, Apple is looking past that and how navigation integrates with the other things in an iPhone user’s life.

This is also obviously another shot in the growing war between Apple and Google. Google has vastly improved the mobile Maps application in the latest versions of Android without allowing or adding similar functionality to the iPhone. Apple seems to be moving away from its long standing relationship with Google Maps on the iPhone with this move. I wouldn’t even be surprised to see an Apple native maps application supplant Google Maps as a first step in the move to this new navigation application.

Is this just another move by Apple to take market share for itself in another lucrative App Store space? Is this another brilliant, far sighted move by a company known for them? Share your opinion in the comments.

Apple Makes It’s Social Move

Social applications and games are the current darling of the tech industry. Whether it’s Foursquare, GoWalla, or Latitude; it seems social applications and games are always in the news. Apple, with its commanding lead in the mobile space, has been noticeably absent from this market. According to an article in Patently Apple today, that is all about to change.

The article details a patent for an application called iGroups. The article provides a great, detailed rundown of the service and if you’re interested in the intricate details of the patent you should definitely check it out. iGroups will differ from other social applications in that instead of relying on a “check in” type mnemonic to track who has or is visiting an area, it will concern itself with creating ad hoc groups. Devices running the application that are within range of each other will exchange tokens per preconfigured options. These tokens provide admittance into an ad hoc group in that geographical area. Devices that have exchanged tokens can then communicate with each other within the group. Judging from the patent information, iGroups seems to focus on the privacy concerns recently raised about services such as Foursquare by giving users control over general properties, such as whether or not they want their device to participate in a group, up to how they want to exchange information with other group members. Privacy of this type is an important differentiator from other current services.

With the explosion of social applications on the iPhone, it makes perfect sense that Apple would want to get in on the space while creating a service that is different from those that exist. Check in services are beginning to make some people uncomfortable and are leading to backlash web sites such as Please Rob Me. Imagine a service that is completely configurable, allows for total opt in and opt out, and doesn’t require a user to broadcast their location across a whole network. Sounds desirable doesn’t it? But more than any of these other reasons, people may be more inclined to use an Apple service for one simple fact: it comes preinstalled. iGroups will own real estate out of the box the people at Foursquare or GoWalla could only dream about. In the end, that might be all it takes to make iGroups a success.

What do you think of Apple’s latest move? Is it just more of the locked down and overbearing attitude of a closed Apple? Is it a smart move by a smart industry player to give their users something they want? Let us know in the comments.