Can the iPhone help you make new friends?

Social networking is really huge these days, and we hardly know anyone who has yet to jumped aboard the Facebook or Twitter bandwagon. After all, you do care what the world thinks about the number of friends you have, right? Building lasting relationships and friendships are not easy tasks, but making friends? Apple might did try to make a splash with their Ping network but this is one of the few ideas from Cupertino that failed to take off in a big way.

A new patent application that was published today seemed to point towards Apple exploring the possibilities of using the iPhone to make friends – thanks to the inclusion of features such as location-based services and interest matching. Who knows, the iPhone could be the tool to help you make new friends? Here is Apple’s potential scenario in the patent filing :-

Social networks are a well known phenomenon, and various electronic systems to support social networking are known. Growing a social network can mean that a person needs to discover like-minded or compatible people who have similar interests or experiences to him or her. Identifying like-minded people, however, often requires a substantial amount of and time and effort because identifying new persons with common interests for friendships is difficult. For example, when two strangers meet, it may take a long and awkward conversation to discover their common interests or experiences.

I thought that the iPhone could just help you make friends even without such patent applications by sitting on the table, while a random stranger walks up to you and asks, “Excuse me, do you play Angry Birds?” and the both of you would have hit it off right away.

Edwin Kee
Categories: Apple
Tags: iPhone, Patent, patent application