Sunday 24 April 2011

iPhone or iPad Tracker

There has been a little bit of a storm recently about the iPhone\iPad tracking database that was recently discovered on the device, and on computers used to backup the device.

I've used an OSX App to take a look at the data on an iPad I'm evaluating.

I live in Felixstowe and commute to Huntingdon, with the odd bit of work in Peterborough and Cambridge.

This is the data collected around my commute:

Note the odd one near Norwich and the ones around the North East of London? Well, I haven't been there since I've had this device. Notice also that the points seems to cluster around larger towns - I've used Waze on this iPad while driving so I was a bit surprised that the dots didn't follow the route that I use, the A14.

Here's a zoomed in part around where I live. The dots appear to be in a regular grid with only one small dot on my house:

It seems that the iPad\iPhone is only storing an approximation of your devices location.

The App I used can be obtained here:
http://petewarden.github.com/iPhoneTracker/

They also have a nice FAQ:
http://petewarden.github.com/iPhoneTracker/#faq

Links to news stories here:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/04/20/secret_iphone_location_tracking/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/04/22/apple_iphone_location_tracking_analysis/

1 comment:

  1. I've updated this here:
    http://blog.thefoleyhouse.co.uk/2011/05/ios-update-433-allows-more-control-of.html

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