iOS4 Blog: The iPhone 5 News Blog News Feed

Thursday, May 5, 2011

The iPhone 5 News Blog News Feed

Location Tracking Fix in iOS 4.3.3 Solves Bug Ahead of iPhone 5 Release

Posted: 05 May 2011 10:52 AM PDT

Apple seeks to clear away iPhone privacy issues by fixing the location tracking bug with iOS 4.3.3, thus clearing away some of the recent bad press that could mar the launch of the iPhone 5 in September.

No company likes bad press, but Apple has a particular aversion to it — especially when it comes to the iPhone.

Copious amounts of time, money, and resources have been poured into forging an image of the iPhone as a product leader, even in the midst of a sea of other smartphones that combine to dominate the market. This is precisely why the steady trickle of middling press surrounding the iPhone 4 over the past year or so has been particularly troubling to Steve Jobs and Apple.

Not that it has affected sales or anything.

In fact, the iPhone 4 continues to hum along as Apple’s most successful iPhone iteration by far, with well over 40 million units sold. Now, with the iPhone 5 release date pushed well off into the late summer, fiscal year 2011 for Apple will be dominated by iPhone 4 sales, in spite of the leaked prototype, antennagate, late arrival of the white iPhone 4, Greenpeace’s eco-sucker-punch, and, most recently, the privacy issue over the iPhone’s location tracking feature.

In case you didn’t hear about it, Apple has fixed the problem with the version of iOS 4 — iOS 4.3.3.

And from what I’ve read, independent sources have confirmed that the new update in fact neutralizes the tracking feature on iPhones. PC Mag has a really convincing article that I encourage you to check out. Click here to read it.

It goes without saying that Apple could have easily dealt with the privacy problem using next month’s WWDC and the purported launch of iOS 5. However, this very pro-active move by Apple to stem the tide of privacy concerns by fixing the issue immediately speaks to the potential gravity of the situation, both for iPhone 4 sales in the near future as well as iPhone 5 sales in the long run.

As we had discussed in a previous article, fixing current bugs on the iPhone 5 isn’t something that can be touted: going back to an internal antenna, for example, isn’t a cool, new feature like NFC. Instead, it’s an admission that the previous model had a flaw. Because the antenna is a hardware issue, there’s really nothing Apple can do about it other than keeping the bumper up on their site for sale for the iPhone 4 and changing course with the antenna on the iPhone 5.

But since the location tracking feature is a software issue, bumping up iOS 4 was kind of a no-brainer for Apple.

For most iPhone users, this news is far from groundbreaking. It may, however, give rise to some speculation about the iPhone 5: if Apple is so concerned about reassuring iPhone users that their privacy is secure, could this mean that privacy-oriented features may be making their way onto the iPhone 5? I am thinking in particular about NFC, Air Sync, and even Android-style over-the-air (OTA) software updates, all of which will or may involve keeping our details private.

For as much as updating iOS 4.3.3 may seem re-active to the privacy issue, it may in fact be Apple’s way of remaining pro-active in paving the way for a successful iPhone 5 launch.