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After the news was released last month that users locations were being recorded by Apple via the iPhone, there was an uproar all over the world.

Apple has attempted to extinguish the firestorm with a simple “No we’re not, and we never will” response. They go on to state that they are partially at fault for not educating users about this feature, and that the data being collected includes nothing about a user’s exact location. Ultimately, they are gathering info on the towers and hot spots around the user in order to more efficiently use map
apps (used to find things to do and restaurants in unfamiliar cities).

Apple says that finding a user’s location using satellite, the typical way a GPS device works, can take minutes. Apple is taking the location information of cell towers and hot spots nearby to each iPhone and creating a database, the goal being reducing the time it takes to get your location, thus reducing the time it takes to get an accurate map from minutes to seconds.

After all of this public outcry, however, Apple has decided to nix the gathering of the data in a future software update, giving the user the ability to opt out of this data collecting project. For those who don’t mind, it will limit the size of the database stored on the phone, no longer back up the data when synched, and Apple will also begin encrypting data.

Article Written by Khristen Foss