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Wednesday 27 April 2011

Apple Responds To Location Tracking Issue [ 27-04-2011 21:52 ]

Author: Irina Turina Source: Apple Translation by: Paul Smith

It almost seems as if Apple lurches from one PR mess to another these days, especially where the iPhone is concerned and the latest furore is of course the secret location tracking issue. Steve Jobs himself waded into the issue just the other day and said categorically that Apple were not tracking users. His statement was predictably brief and didn't contain much in the way of an explanation of what researchers looking into the issue have found. Well Apple have now released a lengthier press release to address the matter. The full statement is included below for your perusing pleasure.

Apple Q&A on Location Data

CUPERTINO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Apple would like to respond to the questions we have recently received about the gathering and use of location information by our devices.

1. Why is Apple tracking the location of my iPhone? Apple is not tracking the location of your iPhone. Apple has never done so and has no plans to ever do so.

2. Then why is everyone so concerned about this? Providing mobile users with fast and accurate location information while preserving their security and privacy has raised some very complex technical issues which are hard to communicate in a soundbite. Users are confused, partly because the creators of this new technology (including Apple) have not provided enough education about these issues to date.

3. Why is my iPhone logging my location? The iPhone is not logging your location. Rather, it's 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. Calculating a phone's location using just GPS satellite data can take up to several minutes. iPhone can reduce this time to just a few seconds by using Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data to quickly find GPS satellites, and even triangulate its location using just Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data when GPS is not available (such as indoors or in basements). These calculations are performed live on the iPhone using a crowd-sourced database of Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data that is generated by tens of millions of iPhones sending the geo-tagged locations of nearby Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers in an anonymous and encrypted form to Apple.

4. Is this crowd-sourced database stored on the iPhone? The entire crowd-sourced database is too big to store on an iPhone, so we download an appropriate subset (cache) onto each iPhone. This cache is protected but not encrypted, and is backed up in iTunes whenever you back up your iPhone. The backup is encrypted or not, depending on the user settings in iTunes. The location data that researchers are seeing on the iPhone is not the past or present location of the iPhone, but rather the locations of Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers surrounding the iPhone's location, which can be more than one hundred miles away from the iPhone. We plan to cease backing up this cache in a software update coming soon (see Software Update section below).

5. Can Apple locate me based on my geo-tagged Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data? No. This data is sent to Apple in an anonymous and encrypted form. Apple cannot identify the source of this data.

6. People have identified up to a year's worth of location data being stored on the iPhone. Why does my iPhone need so much data in order to assist it in finding my location today? This data is not the iPhone's location data-it is a subset (cache) of the crowd-sourced Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower database which is downloaded from Apple into the iPhone to assist the iPhone in rapidly and accurately calculating location. The reason the iPhone stores so much data is a bug we uncovered and plan to fix shortly (see Software Update section below). We don't think the iPhone needs to store more than seven days of this data.

7. When I turn off Location Services, why does my iPhone sometimes continue updating its Wi-Fi and cell tower data from Apple's crowd-sourced database? It shouldn't. This is a bug, which we plan to fix shortly (see Software Update section below).

8. What other location data is Apple collecting from the iPhone besides crowd-sourced Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data? Apple is now collecting anonymous traffic data to build a crowd-sourced traffic database with the goal of providing iPhone users an improved traffic service in the next couple of years.

9. Does Apple currently provide any data collected from iPhones to third parties? We provide anonymous crash logs from users that have opted in to third-party developers to help them debug their apps. Our iAds advertising system can use location as a factor in targeting ads. Location is not shared with any third party or ad unless the user explicitly approves giving the current location to the current ad (for example, to request the ad locate the Target store nearest them).

10. Does Apple believe that personal information security and privacy are important? Yes, we strongly do. For example, iPhone was the first to ask users to give their permission for each and every app that wanted to use location. Apple will continue to be one of the leaders in strengthening personal information security and privacy.

Software Update

Sometime in the next few weeks Apple will release a free iOS software update that:

reduces the size of the crowd-sourced Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower database cached on the iPhone, ceases backing up this cache, and deletes this cache entirely when Location Services is turned off.

In the next major iOS software release the cache will also be encrypted on the iPhone.

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Google Docs Android App Brings Camera Text Capture [ 27-04-2011 21:49 ]

Author: Irina Turina Source: Google Translation by: Paul Smith

Google have released a Google Docs app for Android and it features a rather useful (well hopefully anyway) feature: text capture using the handset's built-in camera. Google Docs previous mobile incarnations were confined to mobile friendly versions, not an actual app so this is a really good move and one that is long overdue truth be told.

All the usual features are there of course e.g. access cloud stored documents, edit them, etc. The camera text recognition will undoutedly be the headline feature here though. Basically you just snap a picture of some text and Google Docs will transform it into an editable document. Of course there is a downside as you probably guessed and that is that the app might have some bother when it comes to handwriting or certain fonts, but no doubt Google will improve this in due course.

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Apple Working On Traffic Service [ 27-04-2011 21:45 ]

Author: Irina Turina Source: Engadget Translation by: Paul Smith

Apple have confirmed that they are working on a traffic service and "is now collecting anonymous traffic data to build a crowd-sourced traffic database". The service isn't near completion yet though with Apple saying it hopes to roll it out to iPhone users within 'the next couple of years'. It's hardly surprising news though that Apple are working on this given a spate of rumours over the past few years.

For example, back in 2009 they snapped up Placebase, a rival for Google Maps, and just last July Apple bought over Poly9, another mapping firm. Then of course there was last month's job listings at Apple that advertised positions for people to work on the iOS mapping experience. Now what all of this means further down the road is that Apple probably wants to move away from its reliance on other companies to provide one of the core features in any modern smartphone. Google Map's days of dominance on the iPhone may not be over just yet, but perhaps the clock is counting down?

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Smartphones Now Account For 36% Of U.S. Market [ 27-04-2011 21:41 ]

Author: Irina Turina Source: IntoMobile Translation by: Paul Smith

Nielsen have been speaking about some new figures for the U.S. market and smartphones are continuing to grow. The devices now make up 36% of the American market and, according to Nielsen, it will only be a few quarters before smartphones dominate and actually hold a majority position.

As you may have already guessed the single biggest player in this is Google with its Android operating system. "In less than 18 months, Android has jumped from nearly 0 percent, about 5 percent, to 37% in the United States and that increase is continuing" according to Jonathan Carson, CEO of Telecom Practice.

Of course it's not just Android that has been fueling the engine driving the rapid smartphone adoption in the U.S., the iPhone is still hugely popular, especially after it became available on more than one American network. Verizon is reporting very healthy sales of the device, which will be bumping the smartphone numbers up even further.

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