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Nothing to see here...just the unabashed evilness of Apple shining through. I'm sure Apple will 'flash the wad' to the right people and make this issue go away...sad :( We are nothing more than chattel to Apple Consumer Electronics, where we are tracked and monitored like open range livestock. This is how they view us, as THEIR herd to do with as they please.

Welcome to the future guys. :mad:
 
Who cares?!

No one cares! Did you know your computer saves information about stuff you do???!!! Oh my! Now, your computer-phone saves stuff too! Exploitation!

They may as well put it on the worthless evening news...."Tonight @ 11, what could be killing you and your children...your iPhone (but not a droid)."

Shut it, please.
 
If somebody steals your phone, this info would be the LEAST of your worries. Get over it. This is the panic of the week. Everybody will forget about it in no time.
 
I don't think that is the point here. Apple, arguably the greatest and most customer-centric company with the world's best smart phone, the best OS and magical appliances (at least, that is what I'm being told here over and over again) collects location data without your prior knowledge or consent. If you become a member of MacRumors it is your own, deliberate, decision. But I already can see where this is going. Cue the drone-like Apple defenders, I hear them coming ;)

The drones, any more, are the anti-Apple Zealots, who know less about what they argue than they do about their own favorite hardware or OS.
 
This whole thing is stupid. Of course the iPhone will track what cell towers and wi-fi access points are around it. It needs this information to be able to make phone calls and access the internet. It makes sense that this info be stored so that it does not have to gather in info every time (basic cacheing). What Apple did not anticipate was that someone would find this database and would start screaming about an "invasion of privacy". It is probably something that Apple could have foreseen and they should have encrypted this info, but until someone proves that this info is actually being transmitted back to Apple, it's just a bunch of crap.

Thank you - this is the first post I read where someone provided a simple and easy to understand reason why this information needs to be on the phone. I am not saying the information is right, because I am not a techie.

I understand that the information doesn't go anywhere, but it would be nice to know why the phone collects it in the first place. If the explanation above is accurate, then I get it. If it is not accurate, then perhaps someone else can provide an explanation as to why it is needed.

I think this is a much more rational discourse than all the fanboy versus troll responses.
 
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I think Steve is outright lying about this.. I don't think most people aren't fond of this, including myself..

My opinion is that he's probably not lying. He's parsing his words in his usual terse style. Steve is not denying the existence of a record of each user's location. He's denying the accusation that Apple uses this information to track individual users. He's implying that it's being used for some other purpose.
 
So stupid. Again, the press just making news out of no news. If they'd do their research, they'd know that all cell phones are tracked by tower pings. :rolleyes:

Apple just need to encrypt the file and all will be good. Otherwise, who cares???
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Mobile/8H7)

Pff I don't get the privacy thing but if I get lost in the woods with my iPhone I want to be found and yes all phones track you.. To a Cretan extent
 
I think Steve Jobs is someone who doesn't suffer idiots gladly. Note how he didn't say "there is no list of locations on people's iPhones", what he said was "we don't track anyone". The opposite of "we don't track anyone" is "Apple is tracking some people's movements". Do you have any evidence of this? Do you _believe_ it?

Just think about his statement. Then consider that 1. Steve Jobs is just slightly wiser and more intelligent than you and is more likely to have a clue what he is talking about and 2. Steve Jobs is the CEO of a major company and can't afford to lie in public.




You are an anonymous poster on MacRumors. Steve Jobs is the CEO of a major company. You can say whatever you like. Steve Jobs can't. Plus whatever I said above.

Well said.
 
Steve needs to provide a better answer because this one makes him look like a liar.

Ok, so there's a DB on your phone and the computer it syncs to. How do we know it's not being used in some nefarious way? Why isn't it regularly wiped?

I ran the app on my Macbook and it showed where I was since I had the phone....it was scary...:eek:
 
Android is funded by target advertising? I didnt know that, can you provide a link that backs this up?

Android is given freely, so how does Google make money? The same way they make just about (95%+) ALL their money: from selling information to advertisers. So Android exists to get more people to use Google software, which then allows them to sell more ads and make money.
 
This issue is really starting to frustrate me. iPhone users that I know are starting to freak out because they're getting their information from sensationalized media and don't really understand what's really going on.

That is one of the reasons Apple can't sit on their hands with this issue - there are too many people getting misinformation that are spreading it to others.

You are exactly correct. It's the non-techies are are like 'Oh my God' that are freaking about about this, thinking that people now have access to everywhere they go. The techies know that this 'issue' is way blown out of proportion and the only person that would even have access to this information would be you and only you. Not only that, the file is just a bunch of coordinates. It would take a tech savvy person to be able to see it on a map anyway.
 
Everybody is being tracked all the time!!!

Credit cards do, GPS do, you car is, any cellphone is.

The only new story is that Apple has a file with the name.

But remember that Obama as well any other president can have a cellphone with them so they can not being tracked.

The bad news is that the iPhone file is accessible.
 
Android is funded by target advertising? I didnt know that, can you provide a link that backs this up?

Android costs money to develop. Android from what has been put out there is free for companies to use with no licensing fee. So how is Google able to generate money to pay people to code and maintain the software?

1. Google is generating money through it's normal search business which is well documented to know where you are at (physically and on the web) and where you have been (on the web).

2. Google is generating money through advertising generated via the Android platform. If this is the case, it would seem very like they would employ the same tactics used in standard desktop web advertising in the mobile spectrum. So logic and past actions would dictate but if that isn't enough then how about the patent Google was awarded for advertising on the mobile platform based on location? http://www.gomonews.com/google-and-the-art-of-self-defense-location-based-mobile-advertising-patent-is-probably-anti-apple-weaponry/
 
Nothing to see here...just the unabashed evilness of Apple shining through. I'm sure Apple will 'flash the wad' to the right people and make this issue go away...sad :( We are nothing more than chattel to Apple Consumer Electronics, where we are tracked and monitored like open range livestock. This is how they view us, as THEIR herd to do with as they please.

Welcome to the future guys. :mad:

You do realize everything you said is untrue, right?
 
Almost EVERY cell phone that's ever existed has tracked your phone in some form of fashion and stored it on the device. This is nothing new but just because it's an iPhone it's a big deal.

People need to find other things to worry about cause this shouldn't be it.
 
this is a non-story sad steve jobs has to even reply to these stupid allegations
 
Nothing to see here...just the unabashed evilness of Apple shining through. I'm sure Apple will 'flash the wad' to the right people and make this issue go away...sad :( We are nothing more than chattel to Apple Consumer Electronics, where we are tracked and monitored like open range livestock. This is how they view us, as THEIR herd to do with as they please.

Welcome to the future guys. :mad:

Yeah the nerve of Apple and Google!

What do you think they do with the data? Maybe Steve likes to see his herd of iPhones sparkle by the 10's of millions across the planet? I'm sure Google is also setting up the fortress of solitude so they can wield their web ads at will to all Droid's as you meander in your average life! :eek:

The nerve of them both and I bet Microsoft is doing this too! :rolleyes:

How freak'n ridiculous.
 
I've been reading MacRumors for years - only added to the discussion a few times since 08. Not a troll, but still considered a "newbie". :D

Well, he did say "most". If their join date were, say, yesterday, then they're much more likely to be a troll, no?
 
Steve needs to provide a better answer because this one makes him look like a liar.

How so? Everything he said fits the facts as we know them. There is NO evidence that this information gets transmitted to ANYONE, and believe me people are looking hard to prove otherwise. So this makes Steve look like he's telling the truth.
 
As many observers have noted, the iOS location database does not record exact GPS data, instead seeking to pinpoint the locations of Wi-Fi access points and cell towers that the device comes within range of, although the database does offer a clear general track of a user's movements.

The bolded parts are key. The phone is simply keeping a cache of what towers and wifi sources are nearby, so it doesn't have to keep repeatedly doing the same searches over and over. It's like your Mac keeps a list of WiFi networks it has been connected to, so it doesn't have to ask you again the next time it sees them. Yes, that data can be used to point to roughly where you are, but it's not pinpoint accuracy like with GPS.

I think the easy solution to all this is simply to have this consolidated.db file roll off the old data after a couple of weeks or so, rather than keep it around for months or years at a stretch.
 
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