Okay Im sure by now you have stumbled across one of the billion web posts (or saw a report on your local news) about Apple burying a secret file in your iPhone/iPad that keeps track of your location. What Im here to do is lighten any nasty fears you may have over the whole affair and bring it into a smaller scaled scandal. Okay First off I want to let you know that it is indeed true, Apple has a hidden cache of your locations for like 6 months. Those locations, however, are not governed thru the GPS chip, but rather the wireless transmission from the cell towers, so basically it has the accuracy of a fat kid in soccer after 2 periods (about a mile). These file are in fact transferred to your computer upon sync and who knows from there, so in theory if someone snatches your phone or hacks your computers copy they could figure out the general area you have been in. But really how bad is that? like you dont post on Facebook/Twitter every time you breathe…or even worse you “check in” somewhere. Still tho I can understand the upset as those are in your control and this is being taken from you. Okay well Apple definitely has to explain why the hell the were storing all this information (I’ll give you a hint, has to do with marketing and money). Perhaps this last bit of info can help ease you shock a bit tho: Your service provider keeps the same information all the time. Carriers usually use it to judge their network usage by region and you cant access it without a warrant…so yeah there is a small difference, but it’s still available elsewhere. When it’s all said and done, yes it is true Apple has thrown a low blow here and They should have to answer for it, but at the same time you dont have to worry all that much as a victim. The worst thing that could come of it is they grab your location info and somehow sell it to make a profit….well I guess the worst thing that could happen is you have a tech savvy wife and she sees you weren’t actually in Florida for work…

You can get a bit more info thru some link at [PCM], but really it’s not necessary

21 Apr This entry was written by CatastroFUCK and published on April 21, 2011 at 6:11 PM. It’s filed under WTF and tagged Apple, Crapple, GPS, i am now learned, print your own identity, search and destroy, triangulate your position, unrelated tags. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.