Apple Releases iOS 4.3.3 To Fix Location Tracking 212
An anonymous reader writes "Apple has released a software update (iOS 4.3.3) to fix the much-talked-about iPhone Location Tracking bug. Apple faced a lot of criticism over the issue — iPhone and iPad secretly tracks users' locations and saves them in the device's cache as well as in a hidden file which is copied to the PC whenever the computer gets synced with device."
iPhone 3G? SOL (Score:2, Informative)
It look like after 2 years, you're no longer an Apple customer. You're a former customer until you prove otherwise with your wallet.
Disclaimer: I can't find any official statement from Apple about their current 3G support policy. But they did exclude th 3G from this update.
Re:iPhone 3G? SOL (Score:4, Informative)
Two years is double or four times as long as other phone providers.
A Sony Ericsson phone is effectively abandonware as soon as you buy one. A HTC phone is released every 6-12 months and with such a large number of phones to support you won't see many or any updates after 12 months.
Apple's support for the iPhone is pretty exception in the mobile phone market. So unless you can provide an example of a mobile operator who provided support after two years I think you need to stop whining.
Except it was not useful for that (Score:4, Informative)
Since it didn't actually track your location, only present a database of known network points around you, you actually couldn't use it to track anything. I had a look at my own data and you couldn't tell where I lived or worked from it, and those are places I go every day.
Re:Fact checking not a requirement for posting? (Score:4, Informative)
The database is not of the nearest tower or hotspot. It is of many nearby ones, (e.g. within dozens of miles). By having this cache of local known positions, the GPS can resolve in seconds, rather than in minutes.
Look at any analysis of the actual data and you'll see that the points do a very poor job of tracking locations. Some of the points are predictions on where you might go. The point of a cache is to have the data at hand before it's needed, so that when it is needed, it's right there. It's possible he was somewhere near Las Vegas is not tracking.
Give me a break (Score:5, Informative)
And People still can't stop making shit up! There is one file. (the Cache) its not hidden. It contains locations of cell towers and wi-fi APs. It does not contain the users location. The data for each tower was over written and only logged when towers came into range. As such the data never could be used to "trace some ones every move". The data would only show the general location of the user (being somewhere near a tower). The app that showed the locations sensationalized the whole thing by showing a week or mores worth of data by default putting in many more data points. Many days would actually contain few or no data points at all. And no one has shown this data being sent to Apple.
Re:Fact checking not a requirement for posting? (Score:4, Informative)
Yeah clearly that data needs to be synchronised to iTunes
OK, one last time for the cheap seats: Apple syncs everything as part of an iPhone backup. They do this so that when you restore from backup you get the device back to its backed up state (kinda the point), temporary files included. When you actually look at a backup all manner of cache files are included. It is not only a backup of data, it's a backup of device state.
Re:bug? (Score:5, Informative)
what iOS does after this update is what Android has done all along.
1. location updates only stored temporarily.
2. location updates not stored at all when 'location services' disabled (MENU > Location and Security > Use Wireless Networks)
The other difference is that Google has been upfront about what they do with location data. They said all along that they use this data and that it is anonymized.
Apple seem to have come clean now so its all good.
No reason to hate either side now...unless you want to hate both, because they're both much the same.
Re:Fact checking not a requirement for posting? (Score:4, Informative)
What about licenses and DRM which tie purchases to device, meaning restoring to a different device you can lose your data. (Don't care if it allos 2, or 3 or 5 devices....bottom line if you have trouble with your phone you can lose more than the worth of the phone).
Are you daft, bro? Do you actually have any idea of what you're talking about or just spewing random hater crap?
I've backed up and restored the same image onto THREE DIFFERENT IPHONES now. Including my upgrade from a 3G to a 4. And can you guess how much data I've lost? Bingo! Not a single app. Not a single song. Not a single video.
Go back under your bridge, troll.