iPhone 4 Tracking Update: Steve Jobs Say They Don't Collect The Data

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Last week’s revelation by security researchers that any iOS 4.x device is tracking and logging your location (including iPhones and iPads) has seriously shaken some iPhone users to their core. One reader of another site allegedly sent an email to Steve Jobs about his concerns, and got a reply. Jobs says that they don’t collect the data anymore – and that Android does.

I think everybody knows that sjobs@apple.com is purportedly Steve’s e-mail address, and people send him questions all the time, and he answers, sometimes, with usually short, curt and sometimes mysterious answers. I should say this is all alleged. Jobs has confirmed he answers some emails he gets, but he says that there are some fake replies coming from him.

A reader from MacRumors sent this to Jobs:

Steve,

Could you please explain the necessity of the passive location-tracking tool embedded in my iPhone? It’s kind of unnerving knowing that my exact location is being recorded at all times. Maybe you could shed some light on this for me before I switch to a Droid. They don’t track me.

Here’s the alleged reply:

Oh yes they do. We don’t track anyone. The info circulating around is false.

Sent from my iPhone

Well, Jobs doesn’t exactly go into detail on what they don’t track anymore. I think it’s proven that the iPhone 4 is saving your location data in the phone. Jobs could be referring to the fact that Apple isn’t yanking the data off the phone anymore. What are the odds that this passive location logging is patched up in an upcoming update to iOS?

Anyway, Jobs (as we’ve come to expect from Apple) didn’t miss an opportunity to take a swing at Android. He implies that Android is also collecting location data – while everything I’ve read seems to indicate that Android’s location logs are less extensive, automatically delete themselves, and make you opt-in first. I don’t know, make of it what you will. It wouldn’t be the first time that Jobs got an Android fact wrong. I know my fellow TFTS writer Robert Nelson and I are in agreement that this isn’t a big deal. In fact, I sort of assume everything is tracking me. That’s why I wear a tinfoil hat in the house (joking on the last bit).