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Because it's not news. Plus it's a stupid issue in the first place. Every damn carrier in the world tracks your movement FAR more than Apple has. Google's Android tracks you even more than iOS does. This has been happening for well over a decade. Nobody cares, and only a few people have their tin-foil hats on tight enough to care.

Absolutely. I had a text the other week from my carrier (O2 UK) suggesting I go to a shop 10 minutes from where I live to buy a product. They know my rough location from which cell towers my phone connects to and they're happy to use that info for advertising purposes. Carrier's link location information to your account and personal info, Apple aren't doing that.
 
Finer Control

We need finer control over location. All we get to decide is yes or no. We should be able to decide what an app is going to do with the info.

Example: I'd like my maps app to use my location ONLY to tell me where i am. NOT share my location.

These broad agreement terms are the reason i have never installed an application on facebook. the terms are like "allow this application to access all your files, post to your friends walls, share your info, access your friends' info, etc. By clicking agree, you are allowing it to become your new spam bot.

In this new era, clicking agree should not be legally binding. Every time I want to update safari or itunes or install any new program I need to read 120 pages of legal speak? I'd have to hire a lawyer full time for years to get thru it all. I challenge anyone to read and understand every agreement in every app on your computer. For all we know there is a clause in there that says they own your firstborn. This is not directed at apple, this applies to all companies and developers.
 
In the full interview, Jobs discusses why it took Apple nearly a week to respond to the issue, noting that the company needed to take the time to investigate the situation and figure out how best to relate the information to the public.

What a load of crap, they've always tracked users, as have all the other makers. This is not unique to Apple, nor is it unique to any smartphone brand or model.

The only surprise would be to those who do not read the EULA.

You bought it, you signed for it, you had a chance to read the EULA.

If you failed to, because "it was too long and complicated" sorry but that's on you.



Me?

I could give a flip, it's part of the connected web experience of my daily life. I don't have anything to hide and even if I did, there's no hiding anything these days anyway.

Anyone thinking differently, is either going to one hell of a lot of trouble to hide, or is simply in denial.
 
Track your spouse!

For the record, it's really easy to access the file. Didn't even need the phone, the file is on your computer. The iPhone Tracker software finds the file for you. Literally took me 2 minutes to do.

Can't wait to get 2 minutes alone with my EX's computer! -kidding, I could care less, but you get the idea.
 
B to the S

What a load of crap, they've always tracked users, as have all the other makers. This is not unique to Apple, nor is it unique to any smartphone brand or model.

The only surprise would be to those who do not read the EULA.

You bought it, you signed for it, you had a chance to read the EULA.

If you failed to, because "it was too long and complicated" sorry but that's on you.



Me?

I could give a flip, it's part of the connected web experience of my daily life. I don't have anything to hide and even if I did, there's no hiding anything these days anyway.

Anyone thinking differently, is either going to one hell of a lot of trouble to hide, or is simply in denial.

Really? you read every 120 page document that came with every piece of software you install? And understood it without a lawyer?

And Really? you have nothing to hide? pshh. What about when you sign up for life insurance only to find out you cant get it because google sold your location to the insurance co. complete with logs of you going to (or near) the liquor store on a daily basis. Or the clinic.
 
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This easily accessed location data on your phone was already widely known and used by police agencies since last year according to several articles, so you can just imagine what it is like for someone in a police state to have all their locations for the past year easily accessed when they are arrested.

1. There are reports that police in Michigan grab data from people's mobile phones - however, so far not a single victim of such illegal data grabbing has been found.

2. In a police state, it doesn't matter what information is on your phone. It doesn't matter where you have been, what matters is where they want you to have been. If they decide that you met person X at time Y at place Z to discuss overthrowing the government, it doesn't make any difference whether you have no iPhone, or an iPhone that shows you were there, or an iPhone that shows you were not there.
 
The fact the we post on a forum or add some rubbish to Twitter or Facebook means that we have lost anonymity on the internet - but those actions are (hopefully) made with some thought to security settings.

The thing that irks me is that I appear to have left a trace / was tracked in a different country as i deliberately turned 'Aircraft mode' on to save roaming charges and only used the video camera on my iPhone whilst there.

I now know that despite 'disabling' wifi and gprs, there was a conversation with cell masts. Does it really matter? Not really - the country I visited wanted to know who I was in advance and scanned my passport on entry. Uk also knew that I had left the country.

I guess I am guilty as anyone NOT reading the EULA as properly as I should have done, but thought that I would have had assurance the the option could be disabled. That option did not work and now I wonder if the text Apple has left IS accurate. Do they track data and return it to Apple for some reason?
 
We need finer control over location. All we get to decide is yes or no. We should be able to decide what an app is going to do with the info.

Example: I'd like my maps app to use my location ONLY to tell me where i am. NOT share my location.

These broad agreement terms are the reason i have never installed an application on facebook. the terms are like "allow this application to access all your files, post to your friends walls, share your info, access your friends' info, etc. By clicking agree, you are allowing it to become your new spam bot.

In this new era, clicking agree should not be legally binding. Every time I want to update safari or itunes or install any new program I need to read 120 pages of legal speak? I'd have to hire a lawyer full time for years to get thru it all. I challenge anyone to read and understand every agreement in every app on your computer. For all we know there is a clause in there that says they own your firstborn. This is not directed at apple, this applies to all companies and developers.

How about we NOT get carried away before someone steps in and regulates half the features out ALL SMART PHONES and just accept the fact that we now live in a two way communication world?

I think hitting "Allow" or "Deny" is fine.
 
What about when you sign up for life insurance only to find out you cant get it because google sold your location to the insurance co. complete with logs of you going to (or near) the liquor store on a daily basis. Or the clinic.

Is reading for comprehension a lost art? What is wrong with people who don't understand the difference between tower logging and tracking?
 
I think that is more proof of the fact that it was never a bug. Apple was doing it that way on purpose and the only reason they are claiming it was a "bug" is because they got caught big time.

The lie is the fact that it is a bug. It was done on propose and right now Apple is just doing CYA.

I'm so glad I don't have the "everyone is lying and is out to get me" thought process. :rolleyes:

Not only that but if it only tracked you for a time and then deleted it self automatically then I could see it but my understanding this is not just one day or week so in theory they can track you for a long time.

For those who do not care fine I don't care what they think, this should be something that can be turned off without loosing other functionality.

Its stored until the 2mb cache is filled up. According to the article it takes longer to fill up for most people than Apple anticipated. It all depends how many places you visit. Not to mention this file benefits YOU and never leaves your phone. Do you also delete every email you read after you read it? Or every chat after you are finished talking? I doubt it so why care about info stored in a phone that can be up to 100 MILES from where you are actually located? Thats like me getting mad because a phone knows I have been to either Altoona, Tyrone, State College, or 20 other towns within a 100 mile radius of me. No one else knows, but a file on the phone says so. I'm sorry but anyone who gets angry over that is paranoid and most certainly shouldn't have a phone or a GPS or a camera with Geo-tagging.

We need finer control over location. All we get to decide is yes or no. We should be able to decide what an app is going to do with the info.

Example: I'd like my maps app to use my location ONLY to tell me where i am. NOT share my location. .

Thats impossible to do. The app has to share your location with the server hosting the map. Maps are huge and would eat up all kinds of space on your device if they were stored internally.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_2 like Mac OS X; en-gb) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8H7 Safari/6533.18.5)



No, that already exists for cydia users...

Yes. This goes to show you how smart JB users are.. They actually instill apps that disable functionality of their phone.
 
educating people as an industry? Who does jobs think he is? Most of the population may be below average to his economical standards... but what the f was that? People know more than he thinks... It is simple for Apple to track anyone on a cellular network and using an iPhone... but it isn't worth the legal risk is it, if the person's' being tracked isn't worth it... but if Apple or anyone really wanted to... there is nothing to stop it with the infrastructure of iOS and cellular networks today...
 
educating people as an industry? Who does jobs think he is? Most of the population may be below average to his economical standards... but what the f was that? People know more than he thinks... It is simple for Apple to track anyone on a cellular network and using an iPhone... but it isn't worth the legal risk is it, if the person's' being tracked isn't worth it... but if Apple or anyone really wanted to... there is nothing to stop it with the infrastructure of iOS and cellular networks today...

What proportion of iPhone users do you think understand what a cache is? How about what cell tower triangulation is? How about the Core Location framework? Most people don't understand the finer points of how their phone works. The vast majority don't care and just want it to work and not do anything nefarious. As phones get smarter, there are only going to be more things that people don't understand - I think he makes a fair point.
 
How many of the people who posted here negatively about this situation gone and deleted the file in question or downloaded the file that allows you to the tracking?
 
What proportion of iPhone users do you think understand what a cache is? How about what cell tower triangulation is? How about the Core Location framework? Most people don't understand the finer points of how their phone works. The vast majority don't care and just want it to work and not do anything nefarious. As phones get smarter, there are only going to be more things that people don't understand - I think he makes a fair point.

I am trying to decide if you are serious. I suspect most people here understand what a cache is. I think most have a pretty good idea about cell tower triangulation. We are the people SJ is talking about. I'm not sure what the point about understanding technology is about - why do we NEED to know how a smartphone does what it does? It would be nice to understand what features can be turned off if we feel it is outside our comfort zone.

A user may not be bothered about his firewall, he wants it to do what it supposed to. Do you think that the average person would be happy that it sends a feed of the traffic back to the OEM to target the owner for advertising? I seem to remember Belkin had a similar issue some years ago and hurriedly rushed out a firmware update after it was caught.
 
I disagree with people saying it wasn't an issue.

I'm glad Apple responded. If it took pressure so be it. At least the company responds to the issue when it is revealed instead of denying it.
 
I am trying to decide if you are serious. I suspect most people here understand what a cache is. I think most have a pretty good idea about cell tower triangulation. We are the people SJ is talking about. I'm not sure what the point about understanding technology is about - why do we NEED to know how a smartphone does what it does? It would be nice to understand what features can be turned off if we feel it is outside our comfort zone.

A user may not be bothered about his firewall, he wants it to do what it supposed to. Do you think that the average person would be happy that it sends a feed of the traffic back to the OEM to target the owner for advertising? I seem to remember Belkin had a similar issue some years ago and hurriedly rushed out a firmware update after it was caught.

I'm not talking about people here, on an technology-related internet forum - I'm talking about the people on the street who heard about this and could only imagine this story was about Apple tracking their users. Most people are not aware of the process involved in finding your location. It could definitely be said that they could benefit from being educated.
 
It's easy: if you don't want anyone tracking you, then don't carry your phone (or other electronics) with you when you go out. We need to get back to the 70's and start installing more phone booths on street corners again.
 
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