14 DAY TRIAL // In detailing the particularities of a location-centric function in iOS that spurred a lot of controversy this past week, Apple revealed the upcoming availability of a new iOS software update, as well as plans for building an improved traffic service.
Currently at version 4.3.2, Apple’s iOS powering iPhones, iPads, and iPod touch devices stores location data in order to “help your iPhone rapidly and accurately calculate its location when requested.”
Such requests may come from apps whose functionality may require the service to become location-aware.
Apple, however, admits that said data was not encrypted on the iDevices (nor on the backup files created when syncing them with a computer), and that the feature stored way too much of it in the first place.
These bugs are being squashed in the next iOS update: “We plan to cease backing up this cache in a software update coming soon,” Apple said.
“The reason the iPhone stores so much data is a bug we uncovered and plan to fix shortly,” the company elaborated. “We don’t think the iPhone needs to store more than seven days of this data.”
The bug also affected users who actually switched off Location Services. This is also getting fixed the most likely incremental iOS update - version 4.3.3.
In addition to other potential tweaks and fixes, iOS 4.3.3 is sure to include three fixes that Apple confirmed today. The update:
- 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.
Apple confirmed that the next major iOS software release (iOS 5) will also see the cache encrypted on the iPhone. For the full scoop on Apple’s answer to the Location Data fiasco, go here.
The company also confirmed that it 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."
It is unclear whether this will be a turn-by-turn GPS feature built inside its iOS, or whether 'traffic' merely refers to data.