I’ve just started using Google Latitude for iPhone more.  But there’s a problem I knew about but hadn’t experienced.

My friends who have Blackberries have their location constantly updated on the phone.  I have to actually navigate to the Latitude website in Safari for my location to be updated! This is because Apple does not allow 3rd party apps to run “in the background”, persistently on the iPhone.  iTunes of course runs great, which makes iTunes 1000x more useful and engaging. You can double-click on the home button on the iPhone and go to the next track on my iPod – while still using a different app.

Here are some snippets from Google’s blog post that tell you how Google felt about it:

We worked closely with Apple to bring Latitude to the iPhone in a way Apple thought would be best for iPhone users. After we developed a Latitude application for the iPhone, Apple requested we release Latitude as a web application in order to avoid confusion with Maps on the iPhone, which uses Google to serve maps tiles.

READ: We wasted money on building a Latitude app

Google, like Apple, continues to push for improvements in web browser functionality. Now that iPhone 3.0 allows Safari to access location, building the Latitude web app was a natural next step. In the future, we will continue to work closely with Apple to deliver useful applications — some of which will be native apps on the iPhone, such as Earth and YouTube, and some of which will be web apps, like Gmail and Latitude.

READ: Apple better make up for this

Unfortunately, since there is no mechanism for applications to run in the background on iPhone (which applies to browser-based web apps as well), we’re not able to provide continuous background location updates in the same way that we can for Latitude users on Android, Blackberry, Symbian and Windows Mobile. Nevertheless, your location is updated every time you fire up the app and then continuously updated while the app is running in the foreground.

READ: Apple is unfairly limiting 3rd party applications from running in the background. Other phones are more open.

So Microsoft bundles their own applications with their operating system.   Apple gives their own applications an advantage on the iPhone – are these two companies really that different?

Update 9/18 – Google has posted their FCC filing on the Google Voice rejection, and touch on Latitude as well. The filing states that the Latitude app was rejected by Apple because:

1. Replaced the preloaded Google Maps app
2. Could cause user confusion since the preloaded Maps version is Google Maps
3. Offers new features not present on the preloaded version of Google Maps

Apple states they don’t want apps that could replace such functionality and confuse users. Maybe the question about why Google wouldn’t just build this into the Maps app is a good one?

On Thursday news broke that Google’s China chief, Kai Fun-Lee, was resigning. This was positioned in the media as a blow to Google’s China efforts. This story, translated from Chinese, provides some excellent perspective.

The article in the WSJ had an interesting tidbit:

“Mr. Lee’s departure is the end to a tenure in which some in Google’s China team repeatedly clashed with the Chinese government and, at times, with executives in Google’s Mountain View, Calif., headquarters over issues such as marketing, according to people familiar with the matter.”

Later in the article Mr. Lee is quoted saying:

“From the very start, the company’s name was confusing to Chinese users, he said, because the spelling defies the rules of Chinese pronunciation.”

Wow! I could sure see that causing some confusion.

Maybe a re-branding push from China was met with serious skepticism in Mountain View. Google, justifiably so, believes its brand is globally recognizable and a key asset. Chinese web users have proven to prefer local brands. China’s history as a Communist country, and the sense of Nationalism instilled in it’s citizens, could be one reason behind this loyalty to native Internet brands.

Google’s unwillingness to enter China with a more “Chinese” brand could be seen as an indication of hubris from the search giant. In highly competitive global markets, companies should sometimes swallow their pride and acknowledge the fact that foreign users prefer local brands. Even if you are the most valuable brands in the world. In the Chinese language, the word Google didn’t even feel natural (!).

Mr. Lee’s departure gives us some insight into Google’s brand perception and pride.

I wish that I can open all the tabs I have open in Firefox in Google Chrome, with the click of a button.  Or for that matter from Internet Explorer to Firefox, IE to Chrome, and all permutations.

Chrome is more powerful in certain ways, and if  I’m watching a lot of videos and listening to streaming radio during a web session, I want to be able to open all tabs in Chrome. I think Chrome does a better job of handling large, memory-heavy web apps.  Each tab in Chrome is considered a new browser window, in a way – memory usage on individual tabs does not bleed into other tabs.

As a user, I should be able to choose which browser I want to view a web page in, at any moment in time.

Google’s Schmidt Leaves Apple Board – WSJ.com

“Unfortunately, as Google enters more of Apple’s core businesses, with Android and now Chrome OS, Eric’s effectiveness as an Apple board member will be significantly diminished, since he will have to recuse himself from even larger portions of our meetings due to potential conflicts of interest,” Mr. Jobs said in a press statement. “Therefore, we have mutually decided that now is the right time for Eric to resign his position on Apple’s board,” Mr. Jobs said.

This doesn’t sound very amicable. When you start a press release with “unfortunately”, you’re stating flat out that the party did not cave in to what you wanted. In this case, Apple’s request to Google to not enter Apple’s core businesses.  Apple’s core business is software.

Is Google a search company, an advertising company, or a software company?  Does a software company aim to make the world’s information universally useful and accessible?

I think an Internet software company does – Google is a software company.  The right software will make the right platform ubiquitous.  Google search is the right software to make the Internet what it is today.  In the past Mac software contributed to bringing the computer market where it is today, then Microsoft launched Windows, AND opened it up to multiple OEM’s.  The market is changing, and this move hints at the place for software in a web-based world.

The Yahoo-Microsoft deal is finally sealed.  The first part that jumped out at me is the 10 year agreement.

10 years is a LIFETIME in search.  The market is going to change, and this partnership does not guarantee a long-term, formidable Google competitor.

If Yahoo and MSFT don’t enhance their core product to improve the customer experience they will continue to lag behind the market leader.

What could the next 10 years bring?

• Smarter inclusion of image and video in search results.  Video and image search are still in their nascent stages.
• Inclusion of audio in search
• Far more personalized results
• Social results, what your friends clicked on
• Move towards the CPA model

It’s a big partnership, but the game is still far from over!

“Unfortunately, since there is no mechanism for applications to run in the background on iPhone (which applies to browser-based web apps as well), we’re not able to provide continuous background location updates in the same way that we can for Latitude users on Android, Blackberry, Symbian and Window Mobile.”

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Official Google Mobile Blog: Google Latitude. Now for iPhone.

Inside AdWords: Conversion Optimizer is now available to more campaigns:

Speaking about the need to own the entire consumer journey- Conversion Optimizer is an attempt by Google to integrate with advertisers to gain conversion data.  It also helps advertisers more efficiently spend their advertising dollars by automatically adjusting their CPC bids based on conversion history.

The more data Google has on conversions the better they could make ALL of their ad products.  Today they live and die by the click, but that’s bound to change someday.  This is an important feature that could add value to their core business – advertising.