In reply to a post by gilesjuk:

Jobs has said they aren't tracking anyone.

That's true, they aren't tracking just anyone - they're tracking everyone

Loved that comment.

Don't confuse political showboating with inquiry. Franken seems unaware that all of the information was deposed to Congress in July last year.

I am amused at your faith in politicians.

Turn off anti-Apple bleating, engage brain. Read. Learn:

In reference to geothought.blogspot.com/2011/04/scoop-apples-iphone-is-not-storing-...:

"When a customer requests current location information ... Apple will retrieve known locations for nearby cell towers and Wi-Fi access points from its proprietary database and transmit the data back to the device" ... "The device uses the information, along with GPS coordinates (if available), to determine its actual location. Information about the device's location is not transmitted to Apple, Skyhook or Google. Nor is it transmitted to any third-party application provider, unless the customer expressly consents".

In the FC thread you already been pointed to the Levinson blog where he explains how he documented this months ago.

Apple's deposition is here: http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/gadgetlab/2011/04/...

But why do research when you can idly speculate.

When president Blair proliferated the use of street cameras up and down the country, nobody complained about privacy. It's quite fascinating in this internet age that people get upset when they discover a mobile phone knows where they are.

People are glad they can locate their phone if they lose it. For that to happen the phone has to be able to transmit its location.

Apple statement:

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2011/04/27location_q...

So: "Apple is not tracking the location of your iPhone. Apple has never done so and has no plans to ever do so."

Bloomin' Big Brother. What a wuss.

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.

Why?

"We're not doing anything wrong, but we'll stop doing it (not that we are doing it)."

For reason explained in the rest of the statement.

Nicely dishonest selective quoting.

In reply to a post by ian_c:

For reason explained in the rest of the statement.

Nicely dishonest selective quoting.

In reference to www.nytimes.com/2011/04/28/technology/28apple.html:

Apple acknowledged that it had made mistakes, which it attributed to programming errors, in storing the data for a long time, keeping the file unencrypted and storing the data even when users had chosen to turn off location services.

Apple said it would reduce the location cache on the iPhone to no more than seven days. The company also said it would stop backing up the cache onto people�s computers and would delete the cache entirely when users turned off location services.

I don't need the NYT to tell me what is in the actual statement when it is linked two posts up - any more than the world needs a bridge-dweller like you.

In reply to a post by ian_c:

I don't need the NYT to tell me what is in the actual statement when it is linked two posts up - any more than the world needs a bridge-dweller like you.

Is the data captured by the iPhone and backed-up on the PC being sent to Apple?