Google's augmented reality game Ingress can finally be played on an iPhone

Ingress, Google’s own augmented reality game has made an entry to the Apple App store. Previously available only on Android, Ingress was launched for iOS today and can be downloaded for free on iOS devices.

Ingress is a multiplayer game that requires you to choose a “Faction” or a group at the very beginning. There are two groups; “The Enlightened” or the ones who have embraced alien technology, and “The Resistance” the ones that are fighting against it. The aim is to capture the alien technology (called Portals) that are found at public places such as restaurants, signs, monuments and other landmarks while checking into real locations along the way.

The game makes use of Google’s local data, which in turn provides Google with new location information with gamers constantly supplying their location in order to “hack” landmarks. After launching on Android, Ingress grew into a viable marketing channel with a valuable audience of users. This comes as no surprise for two reasons. One, the game has a unique ability to drive traffic to stores and shopping centers in the real world and second because Google’s main revenue source is advertising.

By launching Ingress for iOS, Google could be paving a broader road to add more local information to its database, which can then be used for location-based services such as Google Maps and for the Google Glass.