The growing demand for the social networking sites has also engulfed Apple, as the company is all set to enter the battleground with its "Group Formation Using Anonymous Broadcast Information", for which it has filed a patent. This will place Apple in the row of all major market players who are uniting the users by social networking sites with location based applications.

This patent includes an application that intends to bind iPhone and Mobile Me users into groups based on their geographic locations. The patent was filed to the U. S. Patent & Trademark Office. This patent underlines location-aware mobile application that will be offered by token-based system.

Under this system, the iPhone and other mobile device users will be able to find out where the other users is, and can assemble at the same point of time they share a common location. The tokens will be availed on the users' iPhone or mobile and will be same for same location i. e., will be based locally and will have specific timestamps. This is similar to what Facebook and Twitter already are offering to the users with their location based tools.

The patents states, "A group can be created based on results of the analysis. Users can be identified as members of the group and invited to join the group".

The patent says that ad hoc networks are restricted to users' devices only when they are within a close reach.