Google Latitude just landed on iPhone and as with any location-based app, it's always good to know how to turn it off and maintain your privacy when you so choose. This one can be a little trickier than most since it looks like even quitting the app and rebooting doesn't turn off Latitude tracking.

We don't know if this is some bad coding on Google's part, whether Apple's background location API is supposed to be allowed to do this or not, or if this is just the way Latitude is designed to work (scrary if so!) but it just seems to stay on. In order to turn Latitude's tracking off this is what you need to do:

• Tap Settings
• Tap General
• Tap Location Services
• Scroll down to Latitude
• Flip the switch to off

You should see the little arrow icon in the status bar up top disappear and then you'll know Google is no longer following your every move. To turn it on again just flip the switch back.

UPDATE: Yes you can go into Latitude: Settings and turn off Background Updating. That works too. Whether you wish to turn it off in Google's app or Apple's settings is up to you. If you want to be really sure maybe do both.

Are you sensitive about your location and does Latitude raise any alarms for you if so? Let us know in the comments!

[Thanks @bengillam]

After a slight case of premature app-storification, Google Latitude for iPhone is now officially and properly available for download. Those features again:

• See your friends on a map – find out who’s nearby and meet up.
• Share your location continuously with whomever you choose – help friends and family stay in touch with you, even when you can’t take out your phone.
• Control your privacy – share only city-level location, hide your location, or turn off background updating at any time.

Did you get it? If so, let us know what you think, and let us know what you want next, official Gmail app? Google Navigation? Wave 2?

[Free - iTunes link]

Google Latitude -- the service that either allows you to keep track of your friends or be stalked by stalking stalker types, depending on your point of view -- is finally available for the iPhone and iPod touch. No, it's not built into Google Maps as part of iPhone 3.1 with push update capability. No, it's not built into Google Mobile app. No, it's not even set up as an iPhone app in and of itself.

Google Latitude is a WebApp and it runs in Mobile Safari using the iPhone 3.0 geoLocation feature.

Apparently Apple, in their infinitely-looped wisdom, hasn't yet deigned (or Google wouldn't yet offer them the chance?) to build it into Maps, and Apple decided it would be too confusing to users to have another app on the iPhone thats shows the same Google maps. (And it's not when simply framed by mobile browser chrome? Sigh.)

While Google inarguably makes among the best iPhone WebApps in the business, this doesn't strike us an ideal solution. Still it is a solution for iPhone users desperate to get their Latitude on. Until Apple gets their act together on this, here's official word from the blog:

Our Latitude web app provides all the core functionality you might expect: you can see the location of your friends on a map and modify your privacy settings so that you control how your location is shared and with whom. In fact, if my friends and colleagues back in London haven't yet noticed my absence, they'll see in Latitude that I'm currently vacationing on the beach in Australia. Hi guys, remember me!?

[...] To try Google Latitude, type google.com/latitude into your iPhone's browser. And if you miss the experience of launching the app directly from your home screen, you can add a bookmark to the home screen by opening Latitude in Safari and tapping the + icon > Add to Home Screen > Add.

Wonder if Steve Jobs is already using it to follow Eric Schmidt....?

Techcrunch reports that during Google's I/O developers conference they showed off the iPhone version of Latitude -- which lets users stalk keep track of their friends via GPS and other location-based services -- but not as part of some revamped Map or Google Mobile application as many suspected:

Google has been waiting for the [iPhone] 3.0 software is because it’s not actually creating a native iPhone app for Latitude — as all other location-based services on the iPhone are — instead it’s using the Safari web browser to run Latitude. Thanks to HTML 5, Safari will be able to access a user’s location information and Latitude will be able to access that as well (provided the user gives permission). This will put it on par with what Google is doing in its browser for Android.

Now, Google has made arguably the best and most impressive catalog of WebApps seen on the iPhone to date, but why go that route with Latitude? And waiting for iPhone 3.0 to be released this summer, which also sounds strange given MobileSafari in 3.0 doesn't look to answer any of the persistent-connection problems Latitude faces on the iPhone platform (i.e. lack of background multi-tasking).

So, call us interested but not impressed... yet.

(Thanks antonioj for the tip!)