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iOS 6 - Apple is tracking your every move!!

abnospam

abnospam

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 17, 2008
210
0
I think I discovered something alarming. In iOS 5 there was a location setting called "Traffic". Most people left this on assuming without it they received no traffic in maps. The actual toggle controlled the crowd sourcing feature of traffic. Your phone transmits your location and speed to apple to improve traffic. They did this in iOS 5, I suspect, to build critical mass of data before releasing iOS 6.

So, in iOS 5 I turned this off and saw nice battery improvement. When I upgraded to iOS 6, I opened the new maps and clicked traffic only to get an error that Traffic was disabled and to go to settings. I go to settings and BOOM, the traffic toggle is gone. apple has removed it! My toggled OFF must still be in the plist file. Resetting all settings fixed the traffic issue

What does this mean? It means you now have NO CHOICE in reporting traffic data to Apple. Not only is this a privacy concern, but it chews on battery. Is this even legal to prevent us from turning this off?
 
The "Traffic" toggle is in Settings > Privacy > Location Services > System Services > Traffic
 
Apple has to track your every move to collect the date to improve services, or where do you think they get all the date for to improve them? Google, Facebook and many other companies have been doing that for years (on their websites) and with smartphones it's become standard to track people - not for governmental or criminal purposes but for commercial and consumerist ideals tailored to you.

All the information you gather with your iPhone is sent to Apple, processed via various algorithms and sent back to give you information and search results that are specifically put together for you. So you better live with that or go back using a simple cell phone.
 
I'm pretty sure that Apple is using anonymized data so that all they know is that "an iPhone is going from X to Y at Z speed" not that your iPhone is going from X to Y at Z speed.

If you want to use Traffic Data, you have to give them Traffic Data. That seems fair to me.

With iOS 6 Apple easily has the best privacy options/control of any of the mobile OSes out there.

P.S. You sound like the kind of person that would be interested in turning on:
General > About > Advertising > Limit Ad Tracking

and disabling the Diagnostics & Usage data. You might have missed these, as they are not in the privacy section.
 
Google did it for years and continues to do so on all their services without revealing what they do with collected data and nobody's caring?

Apple started doing it a few years ago for very precise purposes and there's an outcry?

Proves either:
1- Apple users community like to make a fuss of small things
2- Google users community don't know what "privacy" means, and are perfectly fine with it
3- both
 
Good thing I opened this thread and decided to check my settings. I thought a restore saved these settings but went in and checked and they were all back to on again.
 
abnospam said:
I think I discovered something alarming. In iOS 5 there was a location setting called "Traffic". Most people left this on assuming without it they received no traffic in maps. The actual toggle controlled the crowd sourcing feature of traffic. Your phone transmits your location and speed to apple to improve traffic. They did this in iOS 5, I suspect, to build critical mass of data before releasing iOS 6.

So, in iOS 5 I turned this off and saw nice battery improvement. When I upgraded to iOS 6, I opened the new maps and clicked traffic only to get an error that Traffic was disabled and to go to settings. I go to settings and BOOM, the traffic toggle is gone. apple has removed it! My toggled OFF must still be in the plist file. Resetting all settings fixed the traffic issue

What does this mean? It means you now have NO CHOICE in reporting traffic data to Apple. Not only is this a privacy concern, but it chews on battery. Is this even legal to prevent us from turning this off?
Click to expand...

That Traffic toggle is still there in iOS 6.
 
I hope they are watching and recording my every move, especially the derogatory comments to Siri about how utterly, ****ing woeful it is at understanding me.

"Set a timer for three minutes".

"OK. I found these tables for three". *proceeds to list restaurants.

:mad:
 
Yeah, and here in Denmark, all phone carriers is forced by the government to save SMS'es, call history, where you've done what, and your browsing history for a year. The Danish Security and Intelligence Service logs over 10.000 things about every citizen in Denmark every year.

So get over it :rolleyes:
 
Cubytus said:
Google did it for years and continues to do so on all their services without revealing what they do with collected data and nobody's caring?

Apple started doing it a few years ago for very precise purposes and there's an outcry?

Proves either:
1- Apple users community like to make a fuss of small things
2- Google users community don't know what "privacy" means, and are perfectly fine with it
3- both
Click to expand...

im gonna go with option 1, which is whats happened since weds. every lil thing is being bitched about. no wonder apple customers have this certain outlook from everyone non apple

----------
BFG86 said:
Good thing I opened this thread and decided to check my settings. I thought a restore saved these settings but went in and checked and they were all back to on again.
Click to expand...

weird, all my settings transferred except the traffic
 
WeegieMac said:
I hope they are watching and recording my every move, especially the derogatory comments to Siri about how utterly, ****ing woeful it is at understanding me.

"Set a timer for three minutes".

"OK. I found these tables for three". *proceeds to list restaurants.

:mad:
Click to expand...

So? Siri knew you and two other people were hungry before even you knew it yourself. That's the genius of Apple's design, and why they're the best in the business.

I swear. Some people gripe just to gripe. :rolleyes:
 
WeegieMac said:
I really hope that's ALL sarcasm ...
Click to expand...

Nope.
arms.gif
 
I dunno why people buy phones and then complain about tracking... mobile phone companies have been tracking phones ever since they've been out!

Sadly apples success means there's going to be people who will pick up every little fault! Most new tomtoms track you, google tracks you... how else do you get the information about traffic congestion in the first place? :rolleyes:

Do people really think they live such exciting lives that apple care about what they do? shesh!
 
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