racoma.com.phJ. Angelo Racoma on technology, economics, writing, problogging, and getting things done

It seems that Apple wasn’t the only one tracking locations but Google does so as well.

Google and other mobile ad metrics companies like Flurry and Mobclix is being sued for supposedly data location/device identification numbers harvesting and introducing a code that sends back metrics to them.

The complaint asserts that Android users have downloaded apps that include embedded information-harvesting code–APIs for gathering advertising and app usage metrics–that sends detailed information about users, including their locations and unique mobile identifiers, to mobile advertising companies.

All of the three defendants: Google, Mobclix, and Flurry gave no comment as the investigation is underway.

Article via Information Week | Image via Wikimedia Commons (Public Domain)

Apple has just kicked Google from the top.

The tech luxury company is now the world’s most valuable brand, according to the Millward Brown agency, making it worth $153 billion.

Peter Walshe, global brands director of Millward Brown, says Apple’s meticulous attention to detail, along with an increasing presence of its gadgets in corporate environments, have allowed it to behave differently from other consumer-electronics makers

This shows Apple’s dominance despite all the tracking controversy it had the last few weeks.

This should be embarrassing to Google that despite their Android powered handsets selling like hotcakes, the iPhone/iPad maker has beaten them in being the best brand for the year.

Article via: Yahoo! News | Image By es:Usuario:Eligna (Fuente de mi trabajo) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

It looks like Apple released a patch to the iPhone/iPad location tracking bug.

Apple admitted the whole location tracking bruhaha was nothing more than a bug that needed to be squashed. So after a few days here it is:

Apple released iOS 4.3.3 (and iOS 4.2.8 for Verizon iPhones) Wednesday, which brings changes in the way location information is stored and backed up, as well as a number of other fixes and improvements.

In addition here are three more things the patch has dealt with:

• Reduces the size of the cache
• No longer backs the cache up to iTunes
• Deletes the cache entirely when Location Services is turned off

This should allay the fears of iPhone/iPad users for the meantime.

Article via: Giga OM | Image By Dan Taylor from London, UK (iPhone & iPhone 3G (back)) [CC-BY-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Despite all the surprise and questions arising from the iPhone/iPad tracking its users, it looks like all the answers are in the Privacy Policy you agreed to when you buy your iPhone.

We may collect information such as occupation, language, zip code, area code, unique device identifier, location, and the time zone where an Apple product is used so that we can better understand customer behavior and improve our products, services, and advertising.

So it was not “hidden” after all, but rather something to allow Apple to better their advertising. The question still remains though: how does Apple process this information if it’s supposed not leave your device?

Lesson learned: read the details of the papers before agreeing to something.

[Article via: Engadget | Image via: Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)]

If your iPhone or iPad was stolen, there’s a chance that your location data maybe stolen as well.

It was discovered that the iPhone/iPad was tracking its owner’s location since iOS4. According to the reporters, to their knowledge, they were not asked by Apple if they can opt-in to have the tracking applied to them.

Here’s the details on what the file is and what it does:

All iPhones appear to log your location to a file called “consolidated.db.” This contains latitude-longitude coordinates along with a timestamp. The coordinates aren’t always exact, but they are pretty detailed. There can be tens of thousands of data points in this file, and it appears the collection started with iOS 4, so there’s typically around a year’s worth of information at this point.

The most important question can only be answered by Apple: What’s this all for?

[Article and Image via: O'Reilly Radar]