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When Google announced Latitude last week, we wanted to use it in a hurry. But crap, Latitude wasn’t available yet on the iPhone (probably due to Apple’s no background apps policy). Fortunately, we have a BlackBerry Bold lying around as well. We went to Google Latitude’s page to enter in our mobile number, and the install URL was sent to our trusty Bold. Installation was a snap.

When we first run the application, Google Latitude asked us to sign in with our Google account. After signing in, you can invite friends onto Latitude via email or via your contact list stored on Google. We added a few close friends with whom we thought we can experiment this.

Here is a screenshot of the Friends List.

Before anyone replied, we tried “My Location”. We were at a coffee shop in Bellevue at the time, and Latitude located us very accurately.

After some of our friends accepted our invitations, we could see their locations on the map. You can view the friend’s list and select a particular friend, or you can go Next/Previous right on the map. Although our friends only used the Google Latitude on their PCs, it was still fun to watch where they were on the map. Even on the PC, you can use Google Gears with Google Latitude to have your location automatically detected via WiFi HotSpots.

Here are some screen shots of the Latitude running on Bold (we blacked out their names to protect their identities). Satellite view is available in addition to the normal map view.

Just like using Latitude on the PC, Google Latitude on the BlackBerry Bold gives you the choice of automatically detecting your location while it runs in the background, you can choose to set your location manually or hide your location.

On a per friend basis, you can also choose how granular you want to expose your location.

Overall Impression

Google Latitude worked great on the BlackBerry Bold. It silent runs in the background without impacting battery life all that much. We still got a full day of battery life on our Bold while running Google Latitude. Our friend got a real kick out of seeing us moving in real time via Latitude.

We really liked how Google made the feature set and user model almost identical to the PC (web) version. As typical of Google’s products, it is simple and easy to use. It was great fun to see where your friends are, but the biggest problem for us was the shortage of friends who were on Latitude. A lot of people are still very hesitant about broadcasting their locations, and not that many of our friends have devices that support Google Latitude (everyone has an iPhone!). It’s true that you can use Latitude on your PC over the web, but it’s obviously less useful when it’s not running on a phone.

On the downside, Google Latitude is lacking one critical feature, which is the ability to communicate with the friends on Latitude. Right now, the only thing you can do is see them on your map. You would expect to be able to click on them and send them an instant message, SMS or e-mail, but you can’t do that right now. That seems to be a huge oversight on Google’s part.

But other than that, we think Google Latitude is definitely on the right path. We believe that people’s attitudes towards location sharing will change over time. We remember the days when we didn’t understand why people have private conversations on Facebook’s walls. How things have changed in a short couple of years…

Click on this link to learn more about Google Latitude.