iPhone Tracker
Tuesday, April 19, 2011 at 10:57PM | Print Article Earlier this year it was discovered that the iPhone tracks and stores your location based on triangulation against the nearest cell-phone towers. This information is then stored on your local computer (Mac or PC) as part of your iPhone backup procedure. Although there is no evidence that this information ever leaves your iPhone or the computer you backup to, it is clear the data collection is intentional, as the required file is transferred across devices when you restore or migrate.
So what's changed? Have Apple finally explained the reason behind this data collection? Well, the short answer is no, however for the first time the clever guys over at iPhone Tracker have created an open-source Mac OS X application that analyses your iPhone backup data and displays the location information against a map. The video below shows the application in action and how scarily accurate it is, even allowing you to play it as a timeline:
The application is available for Mac OS X and is free to use. The developers have promised that no data leaves your Mac (which I have confirmed) and if you are privacy conscious, they also provide detailed instructions on how to clear the data. For all the information and the download link head over to iPhone Tracker.
Matt (LifeinTECH)
Yesterday, All Things D conducted a phone interview with Steve Jobs and other Apple senior executives, covering the iPhone location tracking controversy.
As expected Apple justified their reason for completing this type of tracking (which they call crowdsourced) and reassured users that it is completely anonymous and cannot be used to locate an individual.
They did however say they had discovered a bug regarding how the crowdsourced data is stored for users who have location services switched off. This will be resolved in a future iOS update.
For the full transcript of the interview head over to All Things D.