screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET

Ingress, an augmented-reality Android game from Google's Niantic Labs unit in which players try to conquer territory in the real world, will come to iOS in 2014.

Arriving on the scene a year ago, the closed-beta software Ingress has been gradually updated with bug fixes and new features. One thing that hasn't changed is the absence of an iPhone version, even though Google generally tends to support Apple's mobile operating system.

Next year, however, Google plans to release Ingress for iOS, Ingress product manager Brandon Badger told All Things D.

In Ingress, players join one of two teams -- the Enlightened or the Resistance. Players jokingly have nicknamed the teams "frogs" and "Smurfs," respectively, for their green and blue colors. Players then roam around the world trying to capture or defend "portals" that are tied to real-world points of interest, such as public works of art or libraries.

Portals can be linked to draw shapes on the map that enclose geographic regions; conventional game play encourages large shapes that enclose large populations, but some Ingress players have gone out of their way to turn the map into something of an artistic canvas.

Marc Godorr/Google+

For those who want to go beyond completing missions with teammates, a sci-fi backstory also fleshes out the real-world part of the game.