With Maps 6.12 Latitude seems to have vanished?

After updating, the Latitude widget seems to have vanished. And from Maps, I can't get to my Latitude friends anymore. I can't find any notes about this online, in reports or on Google pages. In the comments in the Play Store, others have mentioned this as well. Is there a way to get this back, or is it running still in the background? Some sort of release note?