• Apple Officially Addresses Location Data Controversy

    // Gradly // Apple, blog, Conspiracies, iPhone, News, Rants & Raves, Scandal 1 Response

    Apple officially acknowledged the growing controversy over the logging of location data on the iPhone and iPad. The document comes in a Q&A format. In it, Apple addresses some common concerns and explicitly states that they are not tracking the location of your iPhone/iPad, has never done so, and has no plans to do so.

    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.

    Apple states that all data that is transmitted to Apple is anonymous and encrypted and can not be tied to the identity of the user. They also note that findings that the database continues to grow despite Location services being off as a bug that will soon be addressed.

    Apple is planning on releasing a free iOS update in the next few weeks that performs the following:

    • 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.

    [via: macrumors]

  • New MacBook Pro to Have an All New Case Design?

    // Gradly // blog, Funny No Responses

    MacRumors has heard reliable confirmation that the next revision of Apple’s MacBook Pro line will utilize a new case design for the first time in several years.

    The possibility of a new case design was first revealed by iLounge in February just before the early 2011 MacBook Pros were released. iLounge described the most recent updates as the last “incremental” update before an all-new MacBook Pro design.

    Next year is the year when Apple will introduce an all new design for the MacBook Pro product family, which is already under development at Quanta in Taiwan. It’s being described as a big, “milestone” release for the Pro family, as compared with the speed bump features that will be introduced in [February’s] models.

    The last time the MacBook Pro was redesigned was in late 2008 with the introduction of the unibody MacBook Pro. The unibody MacBook Pro design which remains in use today offers an iMac-inspired design with a black-bezel and aluminum unibody casing. Unfortunately, we have no specifics on what the next MacBook Pro might look like, though many have previously speculated that Apple will take cues from the MacBook Air line.

  • Next iPhone with 3.7 Inch Larger Screen Image Leaked In China

    // Gradly // Apple, blog, iPhone, News, Rants & Raves, Rumors No Responses

    M.I.C Gadget posts two images of what to appear as a white iPhone with a larger display, possibly the alleged 3.7 Inch according to the rumors emerged recently. The images seem way legitimate. it appears to be closer to 3.7 inches than 4 inches. Of note, the image features a white iPhone bezel with Apple’s new proximity sensor.

    The device we seeing here is surely not the white iPhone 4 which appeared in the UK last week. Yes, it has the new proximity sensor, same as the white iPhone 4. Anyway, maybe this is the prototype iPhone with an A5 processor that game developers are using to prepare their iPhone 5 apps.

    iPhone 5′s with larger displays have long been rumored with being 4 inches, edge-to-edge display and Joshua Topolsky saying 3.7 inches.

  • New Evidence On Possible Retina Display For Mac

    // Gradly // Apple, blog, Download, Rants & Raves, Rumors, Tech. No Responses

    As reported earlier about the possibility of Apple planning a retina display for Mac, just like what we have on the iPhone 4. In addition to the beautiful and huge wallpaper, new icons with higher resolution have now been discovered as well.

    MacMagazine.com.br has found several icons with resolution of 1024×1024 compared to what we now have in Snow Leopard – 512×512. Click the image above to see it in full resolution.

    This is probably a first step towards Apple’s release of retina display in their desktop computers, when the hardware allows them to.