Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Apple Officially Addresses Location Data Controversy

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_6 like Mac OS X; en-gb) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8E200 Safari/6533.18.5)

Full of Win said:
This is a lie

The iPhone is not logging your location. Rather, it’s maintaining a database of Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers around your current location,
Click to expand...

Keeping a database of our general location is logging our location. :mad: Does Apple really think this double talk, where they say they keep a database of location but don't log the location is going to fly?

At least our overlord will now, I hope, stop collecting location data when location services are turned off. It's a disgrace that it took a media storm to shame them into action.
Click to expand...

It wouldn't hurt to actually read the article. I know this wouldn't allow you to write the gibberish that is your paranoia, so I can see why you wouldn't. They say very clearly that they will be releasing an update to the particular problem of location services. Also, the phone isn't logging your location if it is logging cell towers and some wifi hotspots. It's logging those locations.
 
samcraig said:
Did you read ANY of the news articles.

With location services turned off, this data was still be collected. And Apple says this was a "bug"

So you're wrong.
Click to expand...

Regardless,

Carrying any type of wireless phone (even so-called dumb phones), and expecting to have no chance of being tracked, or logged in some fassion is a bit closed minded.

whooleytoo said:
Because, despite how Apple excel at so many things, when it comes to handling user (quality or privacy) concerns like this, they suck.

Look at their responses to the iPhone 4 antenna issue:
"You're holding it wrong" - Blame the customer.
'Every phone has the same issue' - Our phone is bad, but no worse than anyone else's
'Let's change how the signal bars are displayed' - Let's hide the problem.
'Let's give a bumper case with the iPhone' - Let's offer a solution to some users, to get them off our back for a problem we used to deny even existed.

I'm not even saying the antenna issue was a serious problem, but Apple's dismissive attitude is only throwing fuel on the fire. If they had tackled it quicker, it would be never have been newsworthy.

It's great that Apple are addressing this (location) issue much quicker, but still it only is happening after they initially denied there was any issue, and waiting for the furore to grow before acting.
Click to expand...

Agreed, Apple is a bit too good at putting it's foot in it's own stem.. I mean mouth. :eek:
 
Vegasman said:
And if you beleive that, you are misinformed.
Click to expand...

"Apple is planning on releasing a free iOS update in the next few weeks that performs the following:

- reduces the size of the crowd-sourced Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower database cached on the iPhone,
- ceases backing up this cache, and
- deletes this cache entirely when Location Services is turned off."

Does not say anything about not tracking when you turn Location Services off, it just says that it will delete the log. This suggests that it did NOT track before when the option was off, otherwise Apple would also address that.

Show me where any article explicitly says that they still track when it is disabled.
 
I miss the old Apple where they didn't care if idiots complained. Between changing the bars after the antenna issue, ( all they really did is change the bars to not show a big drop when there was a big drop in reception, as AT&T suggested,) and now nerfing location services DB they just seem to be giving in to idiocracy.
 
Oh well. It's not as if I get out much anyway...
SFDTG.jpg
 
samcraig said:
No it's not.

And I think MOST people aren't blowing anything out of proportion. Being concerned about tracking information/privacy issues is important. Most people (stop generalizing just because some on this board are) are NOT over-reacting but were calling for deeper investigation into the issue.
Click to expand...


Yes, it is. It's hardly tracking if distant towers are also logged. It's a minor issue. Logs need to be deleted after a short period of time. It will be done.
 
bobthedino said:
How long would have been reasonable, do you think? A week is not too bad, especially considering we've just had the Easter holidays.

Also it's surely better to spend time to get something right. Clearly Apple has had to investigate the iOS source code to find out what was actually going on, as it obviously wasn't behaving as expected. Finding the right engineers and actually doing the work isn't a matter of hours.
Click to expand...

2 days. When it was first reported. Almost a year ago.
 
logandzwon said:
I miss the old Apple where they didn't care if idiots complained. Between changing the bars after the antenna issue, ( all they really did is change the bars to not show a big drop when there was a big drop in reception, as AT&T suggested,) and now nerfing location services DB they just seem to be giving in to idiocracy.
Click to expand...

And Tea Party members :D
 
samcraig said:
Your type of apathy in the long term will do more harm than good.

There is a big difference between voluntarily and involuntarily giving out personal information and that's what was at stake here.

Apple admitted error - it's ok - you can admit it might not have been in the best interest of consumers too. Apple won't come and take your iPhone away.
Click to expand...

Well said, but as Apple has already stated they are not collecting this information for other use than speeding up location. Considering the fact that cases against Apple are already underway, I trust the information they released today to be accurate. It would be foolish to mislead customers while proceedings have started.

Many people that cried outrage are actually ignoring more obvious privacy issues: twitter, foursquare and facebook status updates, and eg. the announcement today that TomTom actually actively sells location and speed data from drivers to the police, to aid in the strategic placement of speed cameras.
 
AaronEdwards said:
And here I thought that data wasn't sent to Apple? At least they encrypted it so that you can't tell what actually is sent.

Edit:

But really, they are doing the right thing by truncating the size, removing it from files being backuped, and encrypting the file.
Click to expand...

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the wasn't sent argument was short for wasn't sent to Apple to track you personally. You're always sending out some sort of location data whether it be your IP or the wifi data. This was announced as a feature back when they first showed of location tracking on the iPhone (so you can't say it was secret). I guess the assumption was that people would remember context of what was said before. The context was that we knew about the anonymous wifi data and people were claiming location database on the phone was being used by Apple to track people personally (the 3rd party local access as a reasonable concern although a bit unlikely). I guess we should have been more explicit in and hoped people try to understand context instead of only becoming irrationally angry at the words "location". Oh well.

Oh, and I like how people are claiming the non-encryption was said by Apple to be a bug and then acting incredulous. Yeah, that tends to happen when you make something up. The only thing that was a bug was the cache not getting culled over time or deleted completely when location services is off. Encryption is a new feature (that arguably should have been there to start) and the file being backed up was probably an oversight. I have no idea how Apple handles their audits but they should probably look into it since they messed up here and only addressed it after we got yet another "-gate" in the media. (Do they even have a fence at this point or is it just a bunch of gates? Maybe they should make a "-gate" for that.) Informing people is, of course, good. However hysterics and hyperbole don't really do a very good job of that.
 
Rafterman said:
Its not about being a criminal or paranoid. This data is for the sole purpose of marketers to sell us crap.

Well, I'm tired of seeing ads everywhere I turn. You can't go to the bathroom now without seeing a ad shoved in your face and its becoming tiresome.

It reminds me of a line from Futurama:

Leela: Didn't you have ads in the 21st century?"

Fry: Well sure, but not in our dreams. Only on TV and radio, and in magazines, and movies, and at ball games... and on buses and milk cartons and t-shirts, and bananas and written on the sky. But not in dreams, no siree.

Well, Fry could have added our iPads and our phones too. Its disgusting already how much advertising has infiltrated our lives. You can't even read a news story on the internet without an ad being being intrusively shoved in your face.
Click to expand...

I'm old-fashined I guess because I have no interest in having a smartphone in the first place. I just have a standard flip-phone. By owning a smartphone, you are always going to be faced with privacy issues because if you are using facebook/twitter and whatever else you are using to broadcasting your information. If you don't want advertisers to use your information, stop using social networking sites and search engines and stop being connected.
 
I don't get it. If the usual haters of "our overlord" hate Apple so much, why are they here and why do they use Apple products? There are dozens if not hundreds of alternatives, get a Droid and stop b****ing on an Apple based site about Apple. :rolleyes:
 
manu chao said:
The point is that I save on my computer what I consider the computer to be safe enough for, which includes, eg, my e-mails. I simply would like to be given the choice to decide whether I want to save certain things on my computer or not. With that database, Apple did not give me the choice because it did not inform me about this database (if it had told me, I might have run a cron job to delete it, excluded it from my TM backups, encrypted my iPhone backups, etc.).
Click to expand...

I did delete it last year when this story first came up, and it's been gone ever since. So when I tried to use that mapping site to track my whereabouts, it couldn't run (file not found).
 
Bleubird2 said:
I'm old-fashined I guess because I have no interest in having a smartphone in the first place. I just have a standard flip-phone. By owning a smartphone, you are always going to be faced with privacy issues because if you are using facebook/twitter and whatever else you are using to broadcasting your information. If you don't want advertisers to use your information, stop using social networking sites and search engines and stop being connected.
Click to expand...

I also use a flip phone. It's cheaper, less likely to be stolen, better for calling, and inspired by Star Trek's tricorder :)

But I have an iPod Touch which I nearly lost...
 
samcraig said:
Your type of apathy in the long term will do more harm than good.

There is a big difference between voluntarily and involuntarily giving out personal information and that's what was at stake here.

Apple admitted error - it's ok - you can admit it might not have been in the best interest of consumers too. Apple won't come and take your iPhone away.
Click to expand...


every time you turn on your cell phone you are "involuntarily" giving out information. My comment has noting to do with being indifferent - but rather - about being practical. we live in an age of hard drives and memory chips - any device with these things in it logs what has been done with it. We leave bread crumbs everywhere - it could be a photo taken on a traffic cam or a hair follicle left in a hotel room. We do not live in an age of privacy. we are extremely public and it will get even worse as time goes by. Being upset about a file with data listing cell towers and wifi routers on a cell phone is unrealistic. just my humble opinion.
 
The response from Apple is weak, the words chosen carefully to leave all options open for the future. The announced actions seem to be the right ones.

Being a convinced apple user i would like to see apple to go ahead and lead the crowd, set the standards for user protection, privacy protection and data protection.

Android and Windows are not valid options, since they are far worse when it comes to protection in my opinion.

As the computers get more senses, more needs to be done to provide dependable, transparent, verified protection.
 
gibbz said:
No it isn't. They say they are not logging your location. This is correct. If it were incorrect, they would be keeping a database of your phone's exact GPS location. Instead, as they state, they are keeping a cache of the cell towers and wifi hotspots in order to aid the A-GPS system. So, no, they are not logging your (and by your, I mean an identifiable log) exact locations and beaming it home to watch you like big brother.
Click to expand...
They are instructing your iPhone to log your approximate location. And I am sure anybody in this thread (ie, those really knowing about the details) knows the difference between 'Apple is logging your location on its servers' and 'Apple is instructing your iPhone to log your location on your iPhone and computer'.
 
revelated said:
And once again people give Apple a pass for something that is clearly an issue.

You mean to tell me that Apple, a company that seems to release fairly solid software, "neglected" to test that when disabling an option called LOCATION SERVICES, that it actually disabled location checking properly? Are some of you really so Jobsian?

Call a spade a spade. There's no possible chance this was a mistake. They got caught. They should not be given a pass over it. If a user opts to disable Location Services, they were working under the false impression that their location was no longer being tracked. Seems mighty shifty to me. Doesn't matter how much data might have been user-identifiable. This sounds like something Google would do, not Apple.
Click to expand...


Please get someone who understands cell technology to explain this to you.
 
FriarNurgle said:
for all the tin foil hatters out there, what will happen to the phone performance when the location services are turned off?
Click to expand...

Improved battery life. :)

I only activate Locations Services when I feel it's needed. Maps, Star Walk and MLB at Bat are about the only ones that come to mind. I don't keep Location Services turned on all of the time. I switch it on before using one of these. For The Weather Channel and other apps that require a location to function I manually enter it.

I've got the Cydia tweak Untrackerd installed and haven't noticed a slow down with any apps regarding location. I run Speed Test without Location Services and it's quick to choose a nearby server using cell tower info. This is why I don't think the record of previously used towers is needed as much as Apple says. Things work well, and fast enough, without these stored lists.
 
And what if I want to keep things how they are right now. If Apple says that they will reduce the size of the database stored in your phone, it also means that iPhone will communicate with Apple's servers more often (instead of finding reference in it's own database it will ask Apple's servers for it). That will cause more data traffic, slower location services and faster battery discharge.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back