iPhone users are wondering why Apple is tracing their every move by location based tracking, which is built into iOS. Apple had kept quiet about the situation until Steve Jobs broke that silence.
As stated by MacRumors, one of the readers sent an email to Apple’s CEO, Steve Jobs, wanting to know the reason for this feature. Jobs himself responded to the concerned iOS user. Here is the user’s email:
“Steve,
Could you please explain the necessity of the passive location-tracking tool embedded in my iPhone? It’s kind of unnerving knowing that my exact location is being recorded at all times. Maybe you could shed some light on this for me before I switch to a Droid. They don’t track me.”
Here is how Jobs responded:
“Oh yes they do. We don’t track anyone. The info circulating around is false.”
As expected, Apple is believed to not have actually tracked and then used the location data. Despite that, the truth is that iOS devices are recording every location of where users go. Jobs’ response of saying the info is “false,” is a referral to the rumors circulating that Apple is tracing customers and then using that information for a purpose, which seemed not to be the case at all.
Apple responded a couple days later in a statement they released explaining how the company uses the location based data, an issue that caused some controversy in the mobile phone world. The statement covers all the concerns and questions that an iPhone user would have for Apple on this issue.
The main concern of iPhone users is first addressed: “Apple is not tracking the location of your iPhone. Apple has never done so and has no plans to ever do so,” thus backing up Steve Jobs email sent earlier in the week.
Apple says in the statement that there are two “bugs” that need to be dealt with. The first one deals with how much data the phone stores from Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers surrounding an iPhone’s location, which could store “up to a year’s worth of data.” The second bug deals with the continuation of iPhone’s updating this information even when users turn off Location Services on their phone. Apple plans on dealing with these issues in a software update coming in a few weeks, along with the discontinuation of backing up data on iTunes when users sync with their computers. With the updates, the iPhones shouldn’t “store more than seven days of this data,” a huge downsize to the year’s worth of data that was originally being stored.
What Apple says it’s really doing is “ maintaining a database of Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers around your current location, some of which may be located more than one hundred miles away from your iPhone, to help your iPhone rapidly and accurately calculate its location when requested.”
The most important issue of the whole dilemma is that Apple isn’t storing your location information by tracking your iPhone as suspected, and then using that information for some plan to use it against you. Apple is taking steps in the right direction by admitting that they are storing much of the information by coming out with software updates that are going correct those “bugs” with the location based tracking. Hopefully, this is the last privacy issue that Apple needs to deal with.