Google has officially launched its search by location function for mobile phones.
Called "Near Me Now," the feature finds a user's location and then allows them to search for local business listings such as shops, restaurants or public transport stations.
A post on the Google Mobile blog, by engineers John Eric Hoffman and Jussi Myllymaki, said: "We wanted to make it fast and easy to find out more about a place in your immediate vicinity, whether you're standing right in front of a business or if it's just a short walk away."
It added: "We wanted to make searching for popular categories of nearby places really simple."
The search tool was previewed in December by Vic Gundotra, the vice president of Google engineering, but is now available from its website for either Android devices - version 2.0.1 or later - or iPhones running OS 3.x.
