Bud Tribble, an old time Jobs confidant and Apple’s vice president of software technology, testified today before members of the US Congress on the company’s privacy and location gathering practices. Tribble, an engineer that helped design the Mac operating system and user interface (also a Sun an NeXT veteran), appeared for a hearing led by Senator Al Franken who took the matter public in the first place. Barron’s reports that Tribble re-iterated Apple’s official stance on the issue, which is that the company doesn’t track its users and has no plans to ever do so in the future.
He also said that the iOS 4.3.3 update turned on encryption of the crowd-sourced location database on the phone. He made it clear this database is no longer synced with a computer. Said firmware update also fixed a bug where the iPhone would continue updating the database even when users turned location services off, he explained. “Apple is committed to giving customers clear notice and choice, and our products do so in a simple, elegant way”, he said.
Tribble, pictured below, took the opportunity to educate Congressmen about location retrieval, underscoring that the iPhone never retrieves a user’s precise geolocation for the database. Instead, he went on to argue, the combination of “cell phone towers and WiFi hotspots, and the phone’s knowledge of what you can receive, is how the phone can determine your location”. There you have it, esteemed members of Congress. Can we now put this subject to rest and please move on?
