Apple working on new social networking app?

The new technology could make meetings a more social experience

Newly published patent applications suggest Apple is working on a social networking tool called iGroups.

Web site PatentlyApple.com said the documents, which were published by the US Patent and Trademark Office yesterday, contain an application that could be used to link groups of people attending the same event.

The application covers what PatentlyApple described as a “very sophisticated cryptographic key generation system” that would link contacts and their communications using GPS and other location-aware information at a physical event.

For iGroups to work, attendees at an event need a handset such as an iPhone that is set up to share tokens with other similarly enabled devices so that the users can receive and share information.

This means that rather than travel around events collecting details on an ad-hoc basis users would be able to gather all of the relevant "local" information they need with very little actual input.

Other features, such as the ability to send an SMS message to all of those in the group, are also being considered.