Apple releases iOS 4.3.3 which fixes location data tracking

The Apple iOS is not the only operating system logging location data on the device without the user knowledge, but Apple is first in fixing the problem. Both Android and Windows Phone 7 OS does the same thing. A new version of iOS was release this week to deal with the tracking issue. Connect your Apple product to iTunes and download the 666 MB large file to update.

iPhone sometimes calculating the location of the devices by using the nearest Wi-Fi hotspots and cell tower locations. By knowing the approximately location of the phone, GPS lookup time could be reduced noticeable from several minutes to just a few seconds.

The time and location of the iPhone is stored in a file for quicker location lookup later. The problem was that this file was never deleted and location data was added even if Location Services was switched off on the phone. Users has reported up to a year's worth of location data on their iPhone. The OS update resolves this by

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

Notice that the location data from all iPhones are still being sent anounymous and encrypted form to Apple for the benefit of other iPhone users. But that is not the only reason why Apple want this crowd-sourced Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data. Apple plans to build a crowd-sourced database for providing traffic service in the next couple of years. Apple also use this location data to serve iPhone users location targeted advertising via the iAds system.

Apple does not reveal if the location data is uploaded to Apple when the phone is connected via Wi-Fi or if this data could be transfered when connected via a network operator as well. Hopefully we are talking Wi-Fi only. We are sure no one are willing to pay for bandwith usage to their operator because Apple wants to server them better adds.