Boot up: white iPhone's UVP, Steve Jobs on tracking, PlayBook review and more

A Windows 7 touchscreen: rarely seen in the wild. Absence of tablets may feature in analyst questions with Microsoft's results.

A burst of 13 links for you to chew over, as picked by the Technology team

Tumblr disappeared me… >> danah boyd
Her account on Tumblr was zapped, and now she finds a company blogging there using the handle she has used since her university/college days: "A few years ago, I learned that there is a technology consulting company called Zephoria.com. And apparently, they've become a social media consulting company. In recent years, I've found that they work hard to block me from using the handle of zephoria on various social media sites. Even before the midnite land grab on Facebook, they squatted the name zephoria, probably through some payment to the company. But this is a new low… Now they're STEALING my accounts online!?!?!? WTF?!?!?!"

The Battle For The Most Content And The Emerging Tablet Market >> Distimo
"The major findings are: " • The Google Android Market eclipsed the Apple App Store for iPhone in terms of free applications and now has 134,342 free applications, while the Apple App Store iPhone has 121,845 free applications.
"• If all application stores maintain their current growth pace, approximately five months from now Google Android Market will be the largest store in terms of number of applications  followed by the Apple App Store for iPhone and iPad, Windows Phone 7 Marketplace, BlackBerry App World and Nokia Ovi Store. The Windows Phone 7 Marketplace will also be larger than the Nokia Ovi Store and BlackBerry App World prior to the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace being available for even a full year."
There are other findings too - that many top publishers are already cross-platform. The question is whether the expectation that the future will continue like the past is reasonable.

Ask Ars: what's the relationship between CPU clockspeed and performance? >> Ars Technica
Informative.

How fast are enterprises going Windows 7? Not fast enough for Unisys >> ZDNet
Small sample alert: only 133 respondents. Nevertheless Unisys (former mainframe giant, now a Windows 7 integrator) isn't happy: ""(O)nly 21 percent of respondents answered 'Migration underway,'" the release noted, "while a combined 53 percent answered 'Haven't started,' or 'Not migrating.' Twenty-five percent said that, at the time, they were 'Piloting Windows 7.'"

Microsoft Q3 2011 earnings results due on Thursday >> WinRumors
"The software giant is expected to post earnings of 56 cents per share, up from last year's 45 cents per share. Revenue is likely to increase by an impressive 12% to $16.2bn in revenue, up from $14.5bn in the same period last year."
Might be the first quarter in decades in which Apple has the larger revenue and larger profit. 56c per share translates roughly to slightly over $5bn; Apple's profit last quarter was $5.62bn.

Scott McNealy re-emerges in tech circles >> CNET News
"Scott McNealy, who co-founded and led Sun Microsystems for many years before its sale to Oracle last year, is once again engaging in the technology world.
"Fittingly for the one-man sound bite factory, McNealy has taken to Twitter, dishing up snarky remarks and relishing the fact that not being CEO of a company means he doesn't have to be politically correct. And he's involved in business again, too, as chairman of stealth start-up WayIn.McNealy isn't dishing on WayIn, but some details are bubbling up."
WayIn will be something like a way to play user-created games while watching TV or live events. Hmm. Twitter it ain't.

White iPhone delay partly due to UV protection >> Tuaw.com
UV protection for people who see it?

Apple CEO Steve Jobs talks about how the iPhone does and doesn't use location information >> AllThingsD
Basically, he goes around the press release. But since he pretty much dictated it, no surprise. Interesting that Apple takes this so seriously now, though. All we got was lots of 'no comment' last week.

Review: The Blackberry Playbook, Thoughtless and Untested >> The Next Web
"What proved most disappointing for me over the course of evaluating the Playbook is the fact that there were flashes of solid utility buried in here. The QNX OS is different and, at least at first glance, usable. The screen is brilliant and crisp. The tablet itself is a fantastic size and a good weight. "The touch-sensitive screen borders are far more usable than they sound at first, it's a very solid feature that I think will be the one lasting contribution that the Playbook offers to the tablet world....
"The multitasking gesture shrinks your currently running app but, in a random and confusing choice, does not freeze the apps when they are minimized. This means that if you're in the middle of playing a game, it will continue to run while it's shrunk down. This behavior is cool looking when it happens to a video app, but it's confusing and frustrating when you want to switch away from a game and it doesn't pause itself until you rotate the tile away."
Ah.

Introducing the new Google Docs app for Android >> Official Google Mobile Blog
"Increasingly, people are using mobile phones to access information -- from email to web browsing to editing documents. Part of getting work done on the go is being able to easily access, edit and share content, which is why we're happy to announce the new Google Docs app for Android. "With this new app it's easy to filter and search for your content across any Google account, then jump straight into editing docs using the online mobile editors. The app also allows you to easily share items with contacts on your phone, right from within the app."
Because the future of apps is there won't be any, we'll use the web instead on our tablets/phones.. No, hang on.

Android tablets: Motorola XOOM returned, Honeycomb half baked at best >> ZDNet
"the XOOM is an excellent piece of hardware. The build quality is fantastic, and it has a powerful dual-core nVidia Tegra 2 chipset with 1GB of onboard RAM, a brilliant 10.1? 1280×800 LED display and high-resolution cameras in front and rear that exceed that of the iPad in terms of raw capability, at least on paper. "There's only one problem. The software on the device as shipped is complete and utter beta-level crap."
Harsh, really.

Grand Central Dispatch for Win32 >> GitHub
Intriguing: Apple's "Grand Central Dispatch" (a method to push some threads off to the GPU for processing) ported and "lightly tested" to Win32.
The interesting thing being that in days gone by, you'd have seen the Mac programmers desperately trying to port Win32 APIs to run on MacOS, not vice-versa.

Open source tools look to make mapping easier >> O'Reilly Radar
Bookmark this page.

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READ MORE » Boot up: white iPhone's UVP, Steve Jobs on tracking, PlayBook review and more

Apple denies iPhone tracking claims

Don't follow me ... Apple says that it does not track the location of a user's iPhone and 'has never done so'. Photograph: Linda Nylind for the Guardian

Apple has admitted that a bug in its software has allowed iPhones and iPads to collect data related to their location even when users turn off permission to collect it – but says it will soon remedy this oversight.

The admission follows a storm of controversy after the Guardian's exclusive revelation last week that the devices stored a file containing details from which a user's movements could be reconstructed.

In a statement on its website, the company says that: "Apple is not tracking the location of your iPhone. Apple has never done so and has no plans ever to do so."

It says that the file discovered by researchers and described in the Guardian is not used for tracking of the phone or its owner. "The location data that researchers are seeing on the iPhone is not the past or present location of the iPhone, but rather the locations of Wi-Fi hotspots and [mobile network] cell towers surrounding the iPhone's location, which can be more than 100 miles away from the iPhone." It adds: "We plan to cease backing up this cache in a software update coming soon."

That will cut the amount of data stored from as much as a year's worth of location information to just seven days, the company says. That is likely to be roughly comparable with the store used on Android phones, which record the past 50 cell towers and 200 Wi-Fi networks that the phone has "seen".

That data is uploaded to Apple in an "encrypted and anonymous" form, it says.

It admits that a software fault means that if users turn off Location Services – which should prevent the upload – the data is still sent. "It shouldn't. This is a bug, which we plan to fix shortly," the company says.

Future versions of the file will be encrypted on the phone. That will allay fears that law enforcement and security services could copy the file and analyse it without a valid warrant.

Apple accepts some of the blame for the concern over the revelations, which have seen it threatened with lawsuits and put under focus from US lawmakers and potentially by European governments. "Providing mobile users with fast and accurate location information while preserving their security and privacy has raised some very complex technical issues which are hard to communicate in a soundbite. Users are confused, partly because the creators of this new technology (including Apple) have not provided enough education about these issues to date," the company says in its statement.

The data is stored because it helps the iPhone to calculate its location, Apple says. "Calculating a phone's location using just GPS satellite data can take up to several minutes. iPhone can reduce this time to just a few seconds by using Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data to quickly find GPS satellites, and even triangulate its location using just Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data when GPS is not available (such as indoors or in basements). These calculations are performed live on the iPhone using a crowd-sourced database of Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data that is generated by tens of millions of iPhones sending the geo-tagged locations of nearby Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers in an anonymous and encrypted form to Apple."

Apple also insists that it cannot identify individuals from the data because the data about networks and Wi-Fi – which is reported to the company's servers – is anonymised and encrypted.

The Guardian approached Apple ahead of publication last week of its article detailing the findings by the researchers, but the company declined to comment at the time. Repeated requests for comment received no response until now.

Since then Apple has found itself under fire, with the US Democratic senator Al Franken writing directly to Apple chief executive Steve Jobs demanding to know why the phones retained the data, and attempts to file a class action lawsuit against the company.

Jobs himself was curtly emphatic in an email earlier this week in which he insisted "we don't track anyone" and that "the info circulating around is false".

View the original article here

READ MORE » Apple denies iPhone tracking claims

Apple Responds To Location Tracking Kerfuffle, Says It’s Innocent, Blames Bugs

Apple aims to – finally – set the record straight about the gathering and use of location information by iOS devices. The entire Q&A can be found below.

Apple starts off by stating that it has never tracked, and will never track the location of a customer’s iPhone. The company goes on to say it’s partly to blame for any ‘confusion’ about it, though, because users haven’t been ‘educated’ to fully understand the technical issues with providing mobile users with fast and accurate location information.

That said, the company did identify several ‘bugs’ which it says it will fix shortly.

As we posited earlier, Apple says it’s merely maintaining a crowd-sourced database of Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers around your current location that is generated by tens of millions of iPhones sending geo-tagged locations, both anonymously and encrypted.

According to the Cupertino company, the location data that researchers spotted on the iPhone is not the past or present location of the iPhone, but rather the locations of Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers surrounding the iPhone’s location, which it adds can be more than one hundred miles away from the device in question.

Apple says it simply can not identify the source of this data (i.e. your location).

Nevertheless, the company says it will release a free iOS software update sometime in the next few weeks that reduces the size of the Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower database cached on the iPhone, start encrypting and refrain from backing up this cache and delete it entirely when Location Services is turned off by the user.

Apple admits that this storing the cache for such a long time was a bug that will be fixed, ultimately recognizing that this was a valid source for concern. Another bug resulted in the iPhone continually updating its Wi-Fi and cell tower data from Apple’s crowd-sourced database even after the user turned off Location Services on his phone.

Earlier this week, a class action suit was filed, accusing Apple of invasion of privacy and computer fraud and of “secretly recording movements of iPhone and iPad users.”

French, German, Italian and South Korean regulators had also started investigating the alleged location collection feature on Apple devices following publication of the researchers report.

Does Apple’s response sound credible to you?

Apple Q&A on Location Data:

1. Why is Apple tracking the location of my iPhone?

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

2. Then why is everyone so concerned about this?

Providing mobile users with fast and accurate location information while preserving their security and privacy has raised some very complex technical issues which are hard to communicate in a soundbite. Users are confused, partly because the creators of this new technology (including Apple) have not provided enough education about these issues to date.

3. Why is my iPhone logging my location?

The iPhone is not logging your location. Rather, it’s maintaining a database of Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers around your current location, some of which may be located more than one hundred miles away from your iPhone, to help your iPhone rapidly and accurately calculate its location when requested. Calculating a phone’s location using just GPS satellite data can take up to several minutes. iPhone can reduce this time to just a few seconds by using Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data to quickly find GPS satellites, and even triangulate its location using just Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data when GPS is not available (such as indoors or in basements). These calculations are performed live on the iPhone using a crowd-sourced database of Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data that is generated by tens of millions of iPhones sending the geo-tagged locations of nearby Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers in an anonymous and encrypted form to Apple.

4. Is this crowd-sourced database stored on the iPhone?

The entire crowd-sourced database is too big to store on an iPhone, so we download an appropriate subset (cache) onto each iPhone. This cache is protected but not encrypted, and is backed up in iTunes whenever you back up your iPhone. The backup is encrypted or not, depending on the user settings in iTunes. The location data that researchers are seeing on the iPhone is not the past or present location of the iPhone, but rather the locations of Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers surrounding the iPhone’s location, which can be more than one hundred miles away from the iPhone. We plan to cease backing up this cache in a software update coming soon (see Software Update section below).

5. Can Apple locate me based on my geo-tagged Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data?

No. This data is sent to Apple in an anonymous and encrypted form. Apple cannot identify the source of this data.

6. People have identified up to a year’s worth of location data being stored on the iPhone. Why does my iPhone need so much data in order to assist it in finding my location today?

This data is not the iPhone’s location data—it is a subset (cache) of the crowd-sourced Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower database which is downloaded from Apple into the iPhone to assist the iPhone in rapidly and accurately calculating location. The reason the iPhone stores so much data is a bug we uncovered and plan to fix shortly (see Software Update section below). We don’t think the iPhone needs to store more than seven days of this data.

7. When I turn off Location Services, why does my iPhone sometimes continue updating its Wi-Fi and cell tower data from Apple’s crowd-sourced database?

It shouldn’t. This is a bug, which we plan to fix shortly (see Software Update section below).

8. What other location data is Apple collecting from the iPhone besides crowd-sourced Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data?

Apple is now collecting anonymous traffic data to build a crowd-sourced traffic database with the goal of providing iPhone users an improved traffic service in the next couple of years.

9. Does Apple currently provide any data collected from iPhones to third parties?

We provide anonymous crash logs from users that have opted in to third-party developers to help them debug their apps. Our iAds advertising system can use location as a factor in targeting ads. Location is not shared with any third party or ad unless the user explicitly approves giving the current location to the current ad (for example, to request the ad locate the Target store nearest them).

10. Does Apple believe that personal information security and privacy are important?

Yes, we strongly do. For example, iPhone was the first to ask users to give their permission for each and every app that wanted to use location. Apple will continue to be one of the leaders in strengthening personal information security and privacy.

Software Update

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.

In the next major iOS software release the cache will also be encrypted on the iPhone.

READ MORE » Apple Responds To Location Tracking Kerfuffle, Says It’s Innocent, Blames Bugs