{"id":9752,"date":"2011-04-26T12:02:41","date_gmt":"2011-04-26T12:02:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/gregladen\/2011\/04\/26\/steve-jobs-android-tracks-you\/"},"modified":"2011-04-26T12:02:41","modified_gmt":"2011-04-26T12:02:41","slug":"steve-jobs-android-tracks-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/2011\/04\/26\/steve-jobs-android-tracks-you\/","title":{"rendered":"Steve Jobs: “Android tracks you, Apple does not.”"},"content":{"rendered":"

According to Steve Jobs, Apple’s iPhone and\/or Apple corporation (the distinction is important but often muddled in this conversation) does not track its users’ geographical location, but Android (which is neither a phone nor a company, but a system … another important yet muddled distinction) does.<\/p>\n

Supposedly<\/a>:
\n<\/p>\n

One MacRumors reader emailed Apple CEO Steve Jobs asking for clarification on the issue while hinting about a switch to Android if adequate explanations are not forthcoming. Jobs reportedly responded, turning the tables by claiming both that Apple does not track users and that Android does while referring to the information about iOS shared in the media as “false”.<\/p>\n

\nQ:<\/strong> Steve,<\/p>\n

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 tracfk me.<\/p>\n

A:<\/strong> Oh yes they do. We don’t track anyone. The info circulating around is false.<\/p>\n

Sent from my iPhone<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The truth is that Android gathers locatoial information (but in less detail than the iPhone) and wipes the data periodically. The data are not stored anywhere else. Apple, apparently, lets you “turn off” tracking but it doesn’t really stop recording the data when you select that option.<\/p>\n

The bit about tracking is probably a mole hill made mountain, but the comment by Jobs, which simply can not be true, is interesting. Did this email ever actually exist? If it did, why is the head of a major corporation even making a statement like this, and is it OK for someone in his position to just make stuff up?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

According to Steve Jobs, Apple’s iPhone and\/or Apple corporation (the distinction is important but often muddled in this conversation) does not track its users’ geographical location, but Android (which is neither a phone nor a company, but a system … another important yet muddled distinction) does. Supposedly:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[57],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5fhV1-2xi","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9752"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9752\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}