Steve Jobs Interviewed on Location Tracking Issues

MacRumors · Apr 27, 2011

Earlier today, Apple officially responded to recent concerns regarding significant amounts of location information being stored on users' iPhone and in system backups, noting that the information is actually a database of nearby Wi-Fi and cellular access points used to provide quick location fixes when needed.

While we noted earlier this week a claimed brief email response from Apple CEO Steve Jobs regarding the issue, he has now spoken more thoroughly about the issue in a new telephone interview with All Things Digital. In the interview, Jobs reiterated many of the same statements made in Apple's official Q&A on the issue, but offers a bit more perspective on things.

Jobs said that the tech industry hasn't done a good job of educating users on what has been a fairly complicated issue.

"As new technology comes into the society there is a period of adjustment and education," Jobs said. "We haven't as an industry done a very good job educating people I think, as to some of the more subtle things going on here. As such (people) jumped to a lot of wrong conclusions in the last week."

Jobs declined to comment on the practices of other companies such as Google that have also been included in the controversy, noting only that Apple intends to participate in discussions with federal legislators and regulatory agencies to reassure them about Apple's practices.

"I think Apple will be testifying," Jobs said. "They have asked us to come and we will honor their request of course."

Jobs also said it will be interesting to see how aggressively the press tracks the issue and looks at what other players in the industry do.

"Some of them don't do what we do," Jobs said. "That's for sure."

Jobs was joined on the call by Apple executives Phil Schiller and Scott Forstall, and All Things Digital will be posting a more thorough recap of the interview shortly.

Article Link: Steve Jobs Interviewed on Location Tracking Issues

Small White Car · Apr 27, 2011

Apple's attitude about this stuf has always been very positive. I'm totally willing to believe that all this stuff was an oversight since believing that matches what they've said in the past.

NebulaClash · Apr 27, 2011

Small White Car said:
Apple's attitude about this stuf has always been very positive. I'm totally willing to believe that all this stuff was an oversight since believing that matches what they've said in the past.

Agreed. More often than not, Apple has tried to side with the user's interests. It's good business practice for them since an angry customer is not a good customer. And since their business model depends on people spending hard-earned cash for products, they need to make their users happy.

Wall Street and the marketplace seem to think they are doing an overall good job.

parapup · Apr 27, 2011

Ugh. This whole tracking "issue" theater is nauseating - for cripes sake stop already.

iCrizzo · Apr 27, 2011

This tracking stuff is all the Apple haters fault. All the non-iPhone owners are the one's making a big deal about it. Can't wait to buy a white iPhone tomorrow so Apple can track 2 phones I own.

Consultant · Apr 27, 2011

Well, as I said before

NUTTY FOLKS: OMG Apple keeps a copy of some wifi stations on my phone. It's a huge privacy violation!

FACT: Apple doesn't access the database cache, emails, passwords, photos on your phone either.

NebulaClash said:
Agreed. More often than not, Apple has tried to side with the user's interests. It's good business practice for them since an angry customer is not a good customer. And since their business model depends on people spending hard-earned cash for products, they need to make their users happy.

Wall Street and the marketplace seem to think they are doing an overall good job.

Exactly.

samcraig · Apr 27, 2011

Yeah - I'm glad Apple thinks education is the issue. After all - their education on Antennae did a world of good

ktappe · Apr 27, 2011

Assume the simple

Occam's Razor does dictate that the explanation Apple has offered up is the most likely. Unlike what some other blogs have been claiming

cough: Gizmodo :cough: ) it's unlikely that Apple meant to leave an unencrypted tracking database available on each phone.

Further, I examined a map of my iPhone's database and there were some unexplained blobs. Unexplained that is until I read Apple's description, and then it all fit. I flew through Atlanta 4 times in the past year, spending a total of a couple of hours there. My mapped blobs on Atlanta were much larger than the entire weeks I spent in Montana and Wyoming. The only way this makes sense is if the data is actually crowdsourced, which is exactly what Apple claims.

So I see little reason to disbelieve today's statements. (Unless you are inclined towards conspiracy theories, which an unfortunately high % of our population seem to be.)

LagunaSol · Apr 27, 2011

All the while the real Big Brother, Google, gets surprisingly little scrutiny from the American press.

Lesser Evets · Apr 27, 2011

Not gettin' it: people are afraid of THE GOVERNMENT getting the data, through whatever means. Most people don't give 2 craps about specifically Apple having the data.

smaffei · Apr 27, 2011

Steve is sick

why are you bugging him about this crap All Things Digital?

slackpacker · Apr 27, 2011

Its not Apple that we are worried about here....Steve. Its how others will use this info.

Vegasman · Apr 27, 2011

Small White Car said:
Apple's attitude about this stuf has always been very positive. I'm totally willing to believe that all this stuff was an oversight since believing that matches what they've said in the past.

Weren't they made aware of this almost a year ago? That's a long time to address an oversight.

Full of Win · Apr 27, 2011

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iCrizzo said:
This tracking stuff is all the Apple haters fault. All the non-iPhone owners are the one's making a big deal about it. Can't wait to buy a white iPhone tomorrow so Apple can track 2 phones I own.

We iPhone and 3G iPad owners are plenty upset by this as well.

toddybody · Apr 27, 2011

I'm very glad Steve is feeling well enough to be out and about. God bless

NebulaClash · Apr 27, 2011

Full of Win said:
We iPhone and 3G iPad owners are plenty upset by this as well.

Well, to be fair, you express hate toward Apple constantly. And given the conspiracy ideas in your signature, you are plenty upset about lots of things in your life. So I would hardly consider you a typical case. Apple could offer free computers tomorrow and you'd instantly post a message expressing your hatred of Apple for doing that.

eastercat · Apr 27, 2011

Whether there was good intent or not, I'm just thankful I installed untrackerd from Cydia; it continuously wipes the location file. JB FTW!

ciTiger · Apr 27, 2011

These are good news. It really seems Apple is willing to go the distance and give more details on the issue.

kcmac · Apr 27, 2011

I'm curious now to hear Googles response. Jobs comments I am guessing are only made for a pretty interesting reason. Kinda like the fragmentation thing that has now come to be generally accepted.

kdarling · Apr 27, 2011

My takeaway is this:

Section 222 of the Communications Act deals with carriers keeping user information private, including location, but of course that has nothing to do with phone OS makers such as Apple and Google.

Now I suspect that Congress will want to bring non-carriers under their wing as well.

Smartphones used to be a pretty sleepy backwater area, where the press rarely bothered much. Now they're daily headline news, under extra scrutiny.

rtheb · Apr 27, 2011

Reading these posts it is obvious that Futurama hit the target...

iPhone 4 Futurama

DrDomVonDoom · Apr 27, 2011

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Lesser Evets said:
Not gettin' it: people are afraid of THE GOVERNMENT getting the data, through whatever means. Most people don't give 2 craps about specifically Apple having the data.

What i find hilarious about people being afraid of the gvernment statement is that if the gov wants ur info, they will take it. Apple really isnt the people to be afraid of. If the gov wanted totrack you, bitch they will. They dont need phones to do it either. They will make a new day of the week just to make you gone.

Full of Win · Apr 27, 2011

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

NebulaClash said:
Full of Win said:

We iPhone and 3G iPad owners are plenty upset by this as well.

Click to expand...

Well, to be fair, you express hate toward Apple constantly. And given the conspiracy ideas in your signature, you are plenty upset about lots of things in your life. So I would hardly consider you a typical case. Apple could offer free computers tomorrow and you'd instantly post a message expressing your hatred of Apple for doing that.

I don't hate Apple, just many of the things they do. Most Apple products I love.

NebulaClash · Apr 27, 2011

Full of Win said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

I don't hate Apple, just many of the things they do. Most Apple products I love.

Then I would suggest you learn to rephrase your statements, because you come across as a clear Apple hater.

Legion93 · Apr 27, 2011

The only thing interesting in this thread is Steve Jobs' health, god bless he is in good condition, hope you get well Steve, and I hope you will feel better in the future and not have any health issues any more.

BTW, Jobs is not interested in peoples location, the media just hypes everything up and if you want absolute privacy, go live in a bunker.

Steve Jobs Interviewed on Location Tracking Issues

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