So, my sordid night of kinky hanky-panky has been uploaded to Photobucket? :eek:
I keed. But seriously, that’s a default option? That would piss me off. Does it create some Photobucket account or something for you?
Depends on how often the location is logged. I suspect the file isn’t that big–after all, it’s just a time and location coordinate, how big could it be, unless that log file is constantly being written to?
Are you sure about this? Seems unlikely that an Android default would be to upload to Photobucket rather than Picasa. Also, I’ve used Android 1.5, 1.6, 2.1, 2.2 and 2.3, and that isn’t anything like the default photo behaviour. What version you on?
Okay, I’ll take the bait.
Seriously you two, the sky is not falling. “MobileMe” is just the name of Apple’s cloud service, which has been around for much longer than the iPhone (under different names). It’s true you didn’t download it; it came with the operating system, just like “Calendar,” “iTunes,” and “Photos” did. Why not write frightened posts about those?
Hmm, peeking through the actual database, it appears that the file is around 25 MB. So far as I can tell, there’s almost 16,000 location data points since June 24, 2010.
ETA: It’s a bit unclear to me what this means, exactly, as there’s sometimes a hundred rows in the database with exactly the same timestamp.
You didn’t take the bait at all. You just said that MobileMe is old and is part of the OS. There’s nothing even there to refute; it’s just non sequitir.
You would be guessing wrong. the iPhone uses cell towers for their positioning/mapping software instead of GPS. It’s pretty accurate.
Only the very first iPhone.
All later versions use GPS primarily, and Wifi / GSM as additional location input.
Up until recently (and still for most cameras) if you wanted location information tagged to your photos you used an external GPS and a software program to add that data to the information file so I’m pretty sure that most of those users know the information is there.
Great. Now Apple knows I have no life.
LOL good point. God they’d be so bored by mine unless the brief trips on the subway convinced them I was up to something 
The technology at the heart of this thread seems to use cell phone tower triangulation. From here:
So there’s literally no way to NOT be tracked by Apple if you own an iPhone.
Let me make it more explicit for you.
“I agree that the iPhone is very intrusive. Just look at MobileMe! It downloads itself onto your phone, and it records your life!”
Here, the implicit premises are 1) that MobileMe downloads itself onto your phone, and 2) that MobileMe was developed for, or is used for, making the device more intrusive. I merely stated that both these premises are false.
How is that a non sequitur? It directly addresses your point (or at least the point you espouse). And while we’re discussing logical fallacies, you might look up poisoning the well.
Wow, this fits in so neatly with another thread to create a giant government conspiracy. The other thread is about technology that some police agencies have acquired to snoop cell phone data without the knowledge of the cell phone owners. So Big Brother can point this gizmo at you and suck up all your data without you ever being the wiser.
I haven’t even tried to find out whether the average Joe can buy this stuff or not.
That’s an article at Ars Tech that talks about it in detail. No, you can’t disable this. You can encrypt the backup on your computer but the copy on your phone is unencrypted. That said, the only way to access the copy on the phone itself is on a jailbroken phone with access to root.
As for what they’re doing with it … probably nothing nefarious. Probably just tracking cellphone coverage for internal use. Apple didn’t comment to Ars but I expect that they’ll claim this tracking is covered by the user’s opt in for GPS tracking. Still. the article notes that Apple told congress last year that all its tracking information was purely anonymous and required the users’ consent - this new triangulation tracking is neither of those things.
It’s a non sequitur because the word “MobileMe” does not appear in the thread linked from the OP. This is a different beast. You might as well be talking about World of Warcraft, for all the bearing it has on this discussion. You can assert, if you’d like, that this newly revealed functionality is the same as MobileMe, but you’d appear to be wrong.
It bugs me. I also would not be at all surprised to learn that at some point Apple drops a few lines into page 47 of the EULA stating that by using their phone, you agree to allow them to collect and sell your location information, and that you avow that this will constitute an existing business relationship, and therefore the “Do Not Call Register” does not apply.
I’m definately of a pre-Facebook generation, and to me, privacy does still matter, even if all I’m doing is staying home and painting my nails.
No, but Phlosphr’s post mentions it, so the clarification by Randy on what MobileMe actually does is appropriate. It has nothing to do with what is being discussed in the OP, but Phlosphr’s post makes it sound like MobileMe has some nefarious purpose and somehow forced its way onto his iPhone, even though it’s been there all along.
I work at an Apple iOS call center, and this issue was our big headache today - tons of people calling in freaking out about us tracking them. One thing I CAN promise folks - there is no tool that exists to let the tech support folks track the phones.
Some days I wish it WERE that easy - “Yes, ma’am, looks like your phone is located at 101 Vine St, 3rd floor” - but us ground-floor grunts don’t have access to anything like that. (For that matter, neither do the higher-level tech support folks, nor the Customer Relations folks, nor any other department my team talks to on a regular basis). All we can do, however, is help you set up Find My iPhone/ iPad/ iPod on MobileMe before you misplace your phone.
Complete speculation, but I see two ways this has gotten into iOS - one, someone was fiddling around with code and trying to see what it could do without fully thinking about the ramifications; or, two, it’s data-mining for advertising. I lean towards option two.
One, leave it a home.
Two, wrap it in aluminum foil. See, those tin hat people were onto something.