Just seven days after Steve Jobs promised to fix the location tracking bugs in iOS, an update is available now for download through iTunes.
A free download, iOS 4.3.3 fixes three bugs related to location tracking:
- The cache of location data is limited to just one week.
- The data is no longer backed up to your computer.
- The cache is deleted when Location Services are disabled in iOS’s Settings app.
The data isn’t encrypted, but Apple says that will be fixed in the next major update, likely iOS 5, which is expected at WWDC in early June.
The 4.3.3 update applies to the iPhone (4 and 3GS, but not the iPhone 3G); iPad (1 and 2); and iPod touch (3rd and 4th gen, but not 1st or 2nd gen).
There’s a separate 4.2.8 update for the Verizon iPhone 4 (the CDMA phone is still on a different fork of iOS).
Update or no, Apple is still expected to testify at a May 10 Congressional hearing about mobile tracking.
Leander Kahney is the editor and publisher of Cult of Mac.
Leander is a longtime technology reporter and the author of six acclaimed books about Apple, including two New York Times bestsellers: Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products and Inside Steve’s Brain, a biography of Steve Jobs.
He’s also written a top-selling biography of Apple CEO Tim Cook and authored Cult of Mac and Cult of iPod, which both won prestigious design awards. Most recently, he was co-author of Cult of Mac, 2nd Edition.
Leander has been reporting about Apple and technology for nearly 30 years.
Before founding Cult of Mac as an independent publication, Leander was news editor at Wired.com, where he was responsible for the day-to-day running of the Wired.com website. He headed up a team of six section editors, a dozen reporters and a large pool of freelancers. Together the team produced a daily digest of stories about the impact of science and technology, and won several awards, including several Webby Awards, 2X Knight-Batten Awards for Innovation in Journalism and the 2010 MIN (Magazine Industry Newsletter) award for best blog, among others.
Before being promoted to news editor, Leander was Wired.com’s senior reporter, primarily covering Apple. During that time, Leander published a ton of scoops, including the first in-depth report about the development of the iPod. Leander attended almost every keynote speech and special product launch presented by Steve Jobs, including the historic launches of the iPhone and iPad. He also reported from almost every Macworld Expo in the late ’90s and early ‘2000s, including, sadly, the last shows in Boston, San Francisco and Tokyo. His reporting for Wired.com formed the basis of the first Cult of Mac book, and subsequently this website.
Before joining Wired, Leander was a senior reporter at the legendary MacWeek, the storied and long-running weekly that documented Apple and its community in the 1980s and ’90s.
Leander has written for Wired magazine (including the Issue 16.04 cover story about Steve Jobs’ leadership at Apple, entitled Evil/Genius), Scientific American, The Guardian, The Observer, The San Francisco Chronicle and many other publications.
Leander has a postgrad diploma in artificial intelligence from the University of Aberdeen, and a BSc (Hons) in experimental psychology from the University of Sussex.
He has a diploma in journalism from the UK’s National Council for the Training of Journalists.
Leander lives in San Francisco, California, and is married with four children. He’s an avid biker and has ridden in many long-distance bike events, including California’s legendary Death Ride.
You can find out more about Leander on LinkedIn and Facebook. You can follow him on X at @lkahney or Instagram.
18 responses to “Apple Updates iOS To Fix Location Bugs [4.3.3 Available Now]”
Were the iPod touches collecting WiFi location data? I thought it really only applied to cell tower and/or GPS equipped devices.
Great I’m trying to setup my new iPhone 4 I just got and now the iPhone verification servers are being hammered by everyone trying to get this update. So I can’t setup my new iPhone.
So does this mean that for those of us who still have iPhone 3G with IOS 4.2.1 are SOL because this update is not available to us ???
I anxiously await a iPhone 5 sometime later in the year but for now shouldn’t I feel a little left out ?
A new IOS update to fix that crap called 4.2.1 should have been issued long ago rather than abandoning us 3G users – this would have been the perfect excuse / time to implement it but instead we have been passed over again…..
Hope it will fix my home button unresponsiveness bug
Got to hand it to Steve; he’s a man of his word.
Yes, because iTouches do use cell tower/wifi triangulation to determine your closest location.
did collecting user location data have any connection to the MobileMe locate my phone service?
on apps and browsers only, on maps and google earth they can’t point your location
The 3G still received support longer than most non-Apple smartphones that have been released and summarily obsoleted within the last two years. Feel free to complain, but the grass is most certainly browner on the other side.
I wonder if such a short limit on cache data will negatively impact the speed at which it determines my location…