At least Garmin doesn't get locations accurately

I have a couple of Garmins as well as GPS receivers from other manufacturers and one thing for sure is that notwithstanding what the Garmin claimed I didn't travel along a road 15 kilometres out at sea for a distance of 800+ kilometres.

The other units had it right - the road was actually on land. So your privacy using a Garmin is maintained!

As for Apples wet explanation, it makes no sense to display an approximate location as the incorporated GPS will produce a better accuracy. Using cell locations as a determinant is extremely risky as there are so many variables. Apple as much admits data is used by Third Parties so it is passed on.

And why keep so much data? Google's data limits are much more reasonable.

"in preparation for such a request"

The iPhone does exactly the same thing Android does, the cache of locations is in ADDITION:

"But Apple thought it could improve on that model, by downloading part of the database to the iPhone in preparation for such a request."

Numpty

How did you make the link between them applying for a patent, and it being implemented in an actual product?

Conclusions:JumpTo

Post your own message

I'v got some tin foil for sale if your running out.

swap you the foil for a cup?

so you can drink the Kool-Aid in style.

How dare you..

suggest that cuddly Apple have had any nefarious intent. They are perfect and should be allowed to do anything they want.

Not like that nasty Micro$oft or Google!

Please Sir Steve Jobs, take my wife - kids too.......

Curious

2:1 thumbs up to thumbs down for the two chaps above. I guess fanbois don't have a sense of humour, which is odd given they bought the damn things in the first place!

Mine's the fire proof one with the anti stab kevlar panel in the back.

Missing the point

"So your phone knows where you've been - I've wanted that functionality on my satnav for years"

The point is phone owners would like the option of not having the information on their every movements stored. In a high density location - like a city - the storing of nearby towers would be good enough to show where you'd been, it's only when you move out into lower mast density areas that the info gets more vague.

I'd rather it said on the label "even though you've turned off location information this little Orwellian f*cker will track your every movement and store it unencrypted on the device, maybe on your backup too and also send it to us" and would much rather be able to switch it off - you know, given that it is mine. We're all aware that cell providers can track your movements but there's a handy little court procedure that needs to be gone through to obtain the information. It seems it's not quite so cut and dried with contents of the phone though as indicated in earlier articles.

If you don't give a toss about your privacy that's all well and good but some of us would prefer to retain the odd right or two as you don't tend to get them back once handed over.

@"What is wrong with iPhone users"

@Chris W: "they use your bandwidth to update their cell tower location database so they can target adverts to you"

I totally agree. Apple are abusing their users once again for Apple's own gain and yet their users still adamantly refuse (beyond all reason and logic) to see any wrong in any of it.

On the one hand Apple fans are deeply preferentially blinkered to fail to see and refuse to see any wrong in anything Apple does. Yet on the other hand, Apple fans often vehemently show they feel so obliged to follow their pack and vote down anyone who dares to try to speak the truth against Apple, which Apple fans so often twistedly & defensively interpret as anyone speaking ill of their beloved brand name. WTF is it with them.

I wouldn't mind so much, but they also so often have to do it with such a swaggering pretentious attitude that they have a shiny Apple product and we don't, so they look down on us poor folk who don't understand what Apple are trying to do.

Its hard to hold a rational conversation with people like this, when they show so clearly they are so profoundly biased in their thinking. I'm sure they won't like what I've just said, but frankly I've got to the point where I don't give a fuck any more and anyway I'm not a follower of any pack and frankly if they had any spine, they wouldn't follow packs so vehemently either. (I'm getting increasingly convinced there's something going on in their psychological behaviour of some of the core Apple fans which is driving behind why they are defying all reason. For example they are too irrationally & sycophantically biased, plus Apple fans are getting too much out of their repeated condescension swaggering pretentious ohhh shiny attitude towards others. I think all too often, they enjoy that condescension).

I would say it also won't surprise me at all Chris W, if you and other posters on here get a few more Apple fans voting you down for speaking the truth, (I see you've got 1 already) just as I fully expect I will also suffer the same vote down fan fate for listing Apples spying patent (in my post above, I've so far scored 3 votes down already). But then effectively I'm an atheist speaking out against the followers of the Church of Jobs, which is exactly how Apple cult fans are behaving, but they don't want to hear it. They are intentionally defying logic, its not they can't see logic, they are closing their minds to it, refusing to see it. That same swaggering pretentious condescension is found driving gullible followers along in religious cults, where the gullible followers believe these lying swaggering pretentious drivers of the cults. But then some people like to exploit packs of people, to make themselves seen as central, important and high profile “trendy” in these packs).

I won't bother replying to amanfromearth above as well, as I've include my reply in this post. What gets me is that I forlornly just tried to show Apples spying plans in their own words! ... So stupid of me, I thought Apple fans would see Apple are spying, when shown Apple's own words and their fans get to see Apples own intentions to plan to integrate spying into Apple products. But oh no stupid me, just as the amanfromearth poster shows, they can't see it because frankly they have their Apple(tm) blinkers firmly in place. So much for trying to reason with them.

@MinionZero

Nice rant :)

+1 vote from me

Clever spies

Telling the world what they are going to do, cleverly encrypted in a public patent application. Oh the deviousness.

As pointed out, any GPS style or other device dealing with location is going to store some information. It seems that even the discoverers of this nefarious plot do not accuse Apple of snaffling the data onto their own network willy nilly.

Now, why are the comments about other systems, such as the big A, so muted, when they are very open that their main income source is advertising and so one can expect that that is a primary use of data that their mobiles collect.

Look, just throw away your mobile, or at least use Pay-as-you-go cards bought in some remote country to hide what you can of your identity. Stay indoors, those cameras are everywhere and, if you have to go out, avoid going in a car - road cameras are good at faces and number plates and no public transport. Actually, avoid towns, too many cameras. No credit or debit cards, nor any form of banking.

You did shred and burn all paper you ever used? Nothing in the dustbin, mind.

Think there is a web site where you can reinforce all of your conspiracy theories, must be lots on Apple there. Oh dear, disable cookies and use someone else's computer.

No more contributing to the Register: your details are out there now. No doubt evil Apple has installed a sniffer in their offices, on their databases ....

Help, must be in a loony bin. Note to self: stop reading comments on the Register.

@MinionZero

I'll bite...

"I totally agree. Apple are abusing their users once again for Apple's own gain and yet their users still adamantly refuse (beyond all reason and logic) to see any wrong in any of it." So are Google and Microsoft. For all we know so are HP/Palm, Samsung, Nokia et al. Your Point? Oh...

it might just be the longest and whiniest troll in history. It this a picture of our commentard; http://blog.getsatisfaction.com/2011/04/27/infographic-the-hard-knock-life-of-an-internet-troll/?view=socialstudies ?

@AC 00:14

Pay more attention. Turning off Location Services has no effect. The phone continues to accumulate location data in these files even when Location Services is set to OFF.

Oh noes!

Someone has down voted me! Does that mean I need to write a hyperbolic polemic about how it's impossible to to talk rationally to Apple haters because they refuse to acknowledge the "Truth" according to me? MinionZero certainly thinks so...

Wazzock.

@"What is wrong with iPhone users"

That may take too long to answer.

How about "What is right with iPhone users"

Have tinfoil, real cheep

Your phone sends a message saying "I need a subset at x'y", the server says "here you go". The only thing Apple need to know is if the request came from an iPhone. They dont need to waste resourses tracking you for some secret master plan to take over the world. Because there is no secret master plan, no hidden volcanic lair, no sharks with laser.

*Paris because she likes thick ones.

And the targettted ads?

Try to look at the broader picture and you will learn the difference between anonymous data and data that may not have your name on it but it still identifiable to you individualy.

Thats why your phone has an imei number amongst other identifiers which along with your itunes account and location data can and does tell Apple the following:

Where you go, how much you spend and what other IoS devices you own, and with that "anonymous" data they can decide what adverts to serve, where to open Apple stores etc etc etc

Those of us who work with geo analytic data know the value of this data, as do the people at Cupertino and you can rest assured they will be using the data.

Even Paris knows the value of data!

@ Bollocks

Just think about it before you post.

Why are they looking for the correct phone to send to?

They're not you twit. The phone asks first.

Re: how do they know what data to send back...

My understanding is that : they have to know where you are approximately first. They also have to send the data back to you.

The alternative is that they beam out their entire database to every iPhone, which receives it and filters out what it needs. This sounds a bit far fetched.

So they have to know *you*, practically.

Whether they keep this data or not is subject for great debate and may not ultimately be known.

But consider that this day and age storage space is cheap, and if google are doing similar bits of snooping 'somewhat' behind your back, can you trust them?

TL;DR: Apple probably tracks iPhones - whether or not they keep the data, is another question... (I would imagine they would). What they do with it is another....

And you call me a twit? AC 22:37

The data cannot be anonymous if they can reply to the phone!

If it was truly anonymous it would not allow any form of reply as you would not know who to reply to with the cached data would you?

If it was truly anonymous all they would get is cell tower data and nothing more, the fact they can send data back to the phone that sent the data in shows it is not anonymous.

There is a world of difference between "some data" and "some data from phone x", perhaps you need to learn that difference.

They DO track you

I agree. I've extracted this info from my iPhone, made a kmz file loaded it into Google Earth and it clearly shows where I live and where I've visited by clusters of points at these locations.

There are individual points miles from where I know I went - but the clusters show where I've been. Also since it contains dates you could get a pretty good idea of where I've been and also patterns - such as where I work, where I am during the day vs at night.

So, basically, no matter what Apple say this is a database tracking you.

So, basically, no matter what Apple say

You could have just typed that.

@SteIMG

"I agree. I've extracted this info from my iPhone, made a kmz file loaded it into Google Earth and it clearly shows where I live and where I've visited by clusters of points at these locations."

Specifically? I call shenanigans. I too have extracted the data from my iPhone and, yes, I can identify where I live and where I work - if I have the information already. There's a lot of clustered data in there and to pinpoint "clearly" where you live is a massive exaggeration.

There's enough to get upset about (such as why it needs to keep this data for so long), but let's not assume this is how Apple tracks you (if they do). If they were tracking you, they'd be doing it on a server, not stuck on the client.

Re: They DO track you

What you go and load the iPhone db into Google Earth, for? Did you want to give Google a little more data to target advertising at you for when you upgrade later this year to an Android phone?

Yes, they track you,

How else would they know which database points you need. And this 'prediction' shows where you have been in the past. I suspect the excuse about cell towers far away being an 'incorrect guess is a a red herring - its to cover the possibility of picking up distant towers which can happen thirty miles away.

Also having a more accurate position info for GPS than cell tower location isn't necessary for A-GPS.

re: Yes, they track you

"How else would they know which database points you need. And this 'prediction' shows where you have been in the past"

Please just think this through. EVERY location request request via AGPS requires a vague location check via Apple or some other provider. Cell towers do not broadcast their position (they're capable of it, but don't in the UK) - your phone has no idea where it is unless it does a cold GPS lock (takes a while, or about a minute at any rate). The better it can narrow down its predicted position, the quicker it can obtain and accurate GPS read.

From the server side, they can't consolidate requests - your IP changes to frequently to do that. From the client side (consolidated.db) there is no method by which Apple receives that file (as accepted by the original researchers).

@AC 22:30

"Also having a more accurate position info for GPS than cell tower location isn't necessary for A-GPS."

Apparently you didn't bother reading apple's statement. If GPS can't get a fix (like, for example, when you're indoors) then the iPhone uses other wireless data to give as close a fix as possible. It also allows for a rapid first approximation narrowing in as satellites are locked.