O'Reilly Apple location tracking

Today O’Reilly writers Pete Warden and Alasdair Allanill reported the discovery that new iPhone models by Apple, and a 3G iPad running iOS 4, is regularly recording the location of the device into a some file on device's disk. Devices running iOS 4 are storing a log with device's locations captured using cellular network signal data and time stamps. Moreover this database is not encrypted by any means. The database is being restored across backups, and synchronized using iTunes sync.

The authors created simple tool named iPhoneTracker which access this file and shows all your tracking info on the map.

Original article about this privacy issue you can read here. There are two solutions to stop your iPhone to spy on you: the first one is to encrypt your backups in iTunes, and the second one is owners of jailbeaked devices. With Sydia you can install tool "untrackerd". This tool will periodically clean stored tracks from your device.

Your smartphone patented now

I just find out that the US Patent and Trademark Office issued a new patent on this topic: A Mobile Entertainment And Communication Device." Do you realize what this means? This patent describes any modern communicator smartphone. This is patent for mobile phone with an internet connection, removable storage, a camera, ability to download video or audio files. A company holding the patent has filed three separate lawsuits against most of mobile developers, including Nokia, Apple, RIM, AT&T, Sprint, Motorola, HP, Helio, Sony Ericsson, HTC, Samsung, etc. So will see how they answer to this.

MacHeist - 10 Mac Apps for an insanely low price

There is an interesting annual sale from Apple Mac developer community named MacHeist. This year taking place the second two week sale with a bundle of 10 Mac Apps. This bundle includes these applications: 1password, CoverSutra, Cha-Ching, iStopMotion, Awaken, AppZapper, TaskPaper, CSSEdit, Snapz Pro X, Pixelmator. And all of this stuff costs only fifty bucks. I you like it welcome to party until January 23.