CDMA iPhone 4 Is Here!

[digitalnirvana 646]

White iPhone 4 could be available in "two weeks"

Apple is set to launch the highly anticipated white iPhone 4 in the next “two weeks”, fuelling speculation that the iPhone 5 will not be launched in June as originally anticipated, according to reports.

White iPhone 4

Apple is set to launch the much-delayed white iPhone 4 in two weeks time, say Bloomberg sources.

The new version is understood to be coming available in the USA on AT&T and Verizon Wireless by the end of this month.

However, this news has fuelled speculation that the iPhone 5, which was expected to launch in June, will no longer be released this year.

Bloomberg’s sources say that that the white iPhone 4 was postponed after the company found that the white paint peeled under heat.

In a statement last June, Apple said: “White models of Apple’s new iPhone 4 have proven more challenging to manufacture than expected, and as a result they will not be available until the second half of July [2010].”

Last month, Phillip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of marketing, hinted on Twitter that a white model would be available by this spring.

Source: telegraph.co.uk

Edited April 14, 2011 by dipanlahiri

[Karthik R 246]

The oft-rumored iPhone 5 will hit store shelves in September with a faster processor and a similar look to the iPhone 4, according to reports going rounds.

[digitalnirvana 646]

One more reason not to buy an iPhone.

Apple iPhone tracks users' location in hidden file

Apple iPhone users’ movements are being tracked and stored without their knowledge in a file that could easily be accessed by a snooping employer or jealous spouse, security researchers have found.

The continually-updated log is held on both the iPhone and the computer it connects to and contains a list of coordinates, and associated timestamps. The records go back to the release of the fourth iteration of the iOS operating system in June last year.

The true contents of the enigmatically-named file “consolidated.db” were discovered by two British software developers who were working on ways of visualising location data for websites.

“At first we weren’t sure how much data was there, but after we dug further and visualised the extracted data, it became clear that there was a scary amount of detail on our movements,” said Alisdair Allan and Pete Warden. Mr Warden previously worked for Apple in an unrelated area.

Mobile network operators keep records of users’ movements based on which masts they are connected to, which police and intelligence agencies can access legally. The data stored by the iPhone could however be accessed by anyone with access to it or the computer it connects to, and is not protected by a password or encryption.

Mr Allan and Mr Warden have set up a website to publicise their findings and allow iPhone users to test whether their movements are being recorded. To further highlight the issue they have developed a simple application that plots the coordinates and timestamps on web-based mapping software.

Apple’s reason for recording the data is unclear and its spokesmen did not return calls requesting comment.

“One guess might be that they have new features in mind that require a history of your location, but that’s pure speculation,” said the researchers, adding that the way the data is copied between the iPhone and computer indicated it was not gathered accidentally.

Other technology giants including Facebook and Google encourage users to hand over location data partly because it is potentially valuable to advertisers.

Dr Ian Brown, a senior research fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute, said: “I certainly think it's something they should have brought much more to the attention of the user, and that it should only be switched on after an explicit user decision.”

Daniel Hamilton, director of the privacy lobby group Big Brother Watch said: “iPhone users will rightly be concerned that their movements are being covertly monitored in this way.

“Apple has a duty to immediately provide their customers with details about how to disable this invasive software."

Source: telegraph.co.uk

[Karthik R 246]

What You Can Do

An important thing to note is that Apple says it will collect almost no location information from your phone if you don't have location services turned on. To adjust your preference open up your device's Settings app (the silver cog) and toggle 'Location Services' to 'Off' if you don't want to be tracked.

[digitalnirvana 646]

^

Still remains the question why would they want to put it there in the first place. It is not as if Apple is an advertisement driven company like Google which needs location data.

[digitalnirvana 646]

Apple under pressure over iPhone location tracking

Apple is under pressure to explain why the iPhone tracks and stores users' movements in a hidden file.

A screenshot from iPhone Tracker, the application designed to illustrate the privacy implications of the hidden file

The Information Commissioner today said anyone who is concerned about the log of their whereabouts can make a complaint to his officials, who enforce the Data Protection Act.

Overnight US Congressmen led calls for Apple to explain itself over the way the iPhone logs users' coordinates based on the mobile network masts to which they are connected. The Federal Communications Commission meanwhile reportedly said it would look into the matter.

The file is stored on both the phone and the computer it is associated with, and is not protected by a password or encryption. The security firm F-Secure also claimed the iPhone reports location data back to Apple twice a day.

In a letter to Steve Jobs, the Democratic Senator Al Franken, who leads a Senate privacy panel, said: "Anyone who gains access to this single file could likely determine the location of the user's home, the businesses he frequents, the doctors he visits, the schools his children attend, and the trips he has taken over the past months or even a year."

Senator Franken asked the Apple CEO to explain why the data is captured, what it is used for and why it did not seek "affirmative consent" from users.

The controversy was sparked yesterday when two British security researchers, Alisdair Allan and Pete Warden, published their findings about the hidden file, which is enigmatically named "consolidated.db". They released a downloadable application that plots users' movements on web-based mapping software to illustrate the privacy implications.

In its statement the Information Commissioner's Office said: "All businesses that are collecting people’s data should have clear and accessible privacy notices. This is especially important where users are unlikely to appreciate the privacy implications of a service they are using.

"Apple has a legal obligation to make clear how people’s information might be used when customers sign up. Equally, customers should make sure they carefully read through terms and conditions.

"Anyone who has a data protection concern can bring their complaint to us and we will look into it.”

Apple's privacy policy states that location data "is collected anonymously in a form that does not personally identify you and is used by Apple and our partners and licensees to provide and improve location-based products and services".

But Professor Ross Anderson, a privacy and security expert at the University of Cambridge, argued the location log could not be considered anonymous data.

"If your location history were to be kept anonymous, it would have to be broken up into separate segments of a few hours or perhaps even less," Prof. Anderson said.

"As it is, if our location histories were to be published without our names on, then anyone who knows where you were at a few definite times in the past can identify your location history from among all the millions of other people's, and then work out where you were at (say) evenings and weekends."

Apple has not yet publicly responded to the controversy.

Actually, iPhone sends your location to Apple twice a day

Forensic researcher Alex Levinson has discovered a way to map out where an iPhone has been. The information comes from a location cache file found on an iPhone (Library/Caches/locationd/consolidated.db).

In practice, this file contains your travel history.

It should be noted that this file can't be accessed by third-party apps on an iPhone, as you need root rights to reach it. However, the file is copied to your PC or Mac during standard iPhone sync operations and is accessible from there.

Yesterday, security researchers Pete Warden and Alasdair Allan released an application that can take such a file and show your movements on a map.

Now, this sounds bad from a privacy viewpoint. For example, authorities could gain a court order to do a forensic examination on your phone to figure out where you've been.

But why is Apple collecting this information to begin with? We don't know for sure. But we're guessing it's likely related to Apple's global location database.

Like Google, Apple maintains a global database of the locations of Wi-Fi networks. They use this to get an estimate of your location without using GPS. For example, if your handset sees three hotspots which have MAC addresses that Apple knows are within a certain city block in London, it's a fair bet you're in that city block.

We know how Google collected their location database: they recorded them world-wide while they had their Google Maps Street View cars driving around the globe.

Where did Apple get their location database? They used to license it from a company called Skyhook. How did Skyhook obtain this information? Well, they had their own cars drive around the world, just like Google.

However, the Skyhook database is expensive. So beginning with iPhone OS 3.2 released in April 2010, Apple started replacing the Skyhook location database with their own location database.

And the real question is: How did Apple create their own location database? They did not have cars driving around the world. They didn't need to. They had existing iPhone owners around the world do the work for them.

If you run a modern iPhone, it will send your location history to Apple twice a day. This is the default operation of the device.

How can they do this? By asking for your permission first. There is an opt-in process during initial iTunes installation, but the prompt is highly misleading:

The iTunes prompt talks about helping Apple with Diagnostics information. It says nothing about recording your locations. If you take the time to read Apple's Privacy Policy, it does explain what they are doing:

To provide location-based services on Apple products, Apple and our partners

and licensees may collect, use, and share precise location data, including the

real-time geographic location of your Apple computer or device.

This location data is collected anonymously in a form that does not personally

identify you and is used by Apple and our partners and licensees to provide and

improve location-based products and services.

We believe the new secret location database found on the devices is connected to this functionality. Apparently iPhones always collect your location information, even if it's not getting sent to Apple.

Source: telegraph.co.uk and f-secure.com

[Karthik R 246]

"Apple is not tracking the location of your

iPhone," the company said in a statement on

Wednesday. "Apple has never done so and has

no plans to ever do so."

In response to worries about location tracking,

Apple said it would release a new software

update that would cut the size of a wireless

hotspot location database stored on its popular

iPhones, and stop backing up that information.

The software will be released in the next few

weeks, it said.

While the iPhone is not logging locations, it does

keep "a database of Wi-Fi hotspots and cell

towers around your current locations... to help

your iPhone rapidly and accurately calculate its

location when requested," the company said.

[digitalnirvana 646]

^

Do not agree as the apps in posts above show data is being collected and why was Apple quiet for so long in refuting it then?

[digitalnirvana 646]

Apple Q&A on Location Data

Apple would like to respond to the questions we have recently received about the gathering and use of location information by our devices.

1. Why is Apple tracking the location of my iPhone?

Apple is not tracking the location of your iPhone. Apple has never done so and has no plans to ever do so.

2. Then why is everyone so concerned about this?

Providing mobile users with fast and accurate location information while preserving their security and privacy has raised some very complex technical issues which are hard to communicate in a soundbite. Users are confused, partly because the creators of this new technology (including Apple) have not provided enough education about these issues to date.

3. 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.

4. Is this crowd-sourced database stored on the iPhone?

The entire crowd-sourced database is too big to store on an iPhone, so we download an appropriate subset (cache) onto each iPhone. This cache is protected but not encrypted, and is backed up in iTunes whenever you back up your iPhone. The backup is encrypted or not, depending on the user settings in iTunes. The location data that researchers are seeing on the iPhone is not the past or present location of the iPhone, but rather the locations of Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers surrounding the iPhone’s location, which can be more than one hundred miles away from the iPhone. We plan to cease backing up this cache in a software update coming soon (see Software Update section below).

5. Can Apple locate me based on my geo-tagged Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data?

No. This data is sent to Apple in an anonymous and encrypted form. Apple cannot identify the source of this data.

6. People have identified up to a year’s worth of location data being stored on the iPhone. Why does my iPhone need so much data in order to assist it in finding my location today?

This data is not the iPhone’s location data—it is a subset (cache) of the crowd-sourced Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower database which is downloaded from Apple into the iPhone to assist the iPhone in rapidly and accurately calculating location. The reason the iPhone stores so much data is a bug we uncovered and plan to fix shortly (see Software Update section below). We don’t think the iPhone needs to store more than seven days of this data.

7. When I turn off Location Services, why does my iPhone sometimes continue updating its Wi-Fi and cell tower data from Apple’s crowd-sourced database?

It shouldn’t. This is a bug, which we plan to fix shortly (see Software Update section below).

8. What other location data is Apple collecting from the iPhone besides crowd-sourced Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data?

Apple is now collecting anonymous traffic data to build a crowd-sourced traffic database with the goal of providing iPhone users an improved traffic service in the next couple of years.

9. Does Apple currently provide any data collected from iPhones to third parties?

We provide anonymous crash logs from users that have opted in to third-party developers to help them debug their apps. Our iAds advertising system can use location as a factor in targeting ads. Location is not shared with any third party or ad unless the user explicitly approves giving the current location to the current ad (for example, to request the ad locate the Target store nearest them).

10. Does Apple believe that personal information security and privacy are important?

Yes, we strongly do. For example, iPhone was the first to ask users to give their permission for each and every app that wanted to use location. Apple will continue to be one of the leaders in strengthening personal information security and privacy.

Software Update

Sometime in the next few weeks Apple will release a free iOS software update that:

• 
  
• 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.
  

In the next major iOS software release the cache will also be encrypted on the iPhone.

Source: http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2011/04/27location_qa.html?aosid=p204&siteid=1503186&program_id=2554&cid=OAS-EMEA-AFF&tduid=c0cc12237f5055918414711bd7176ec9

[Karthik R 246]

Aircel, Airtel to launch factory unlocked iPhone 4

We can now confirm that both Airtel and Aircel will launch factory unlocked iPhone 4 in India. We do not have the exact date of launch, yet, but we have been informed that it could happen towards the end of May.

Source : BGR.in

[kesav 127]

When will CDMA Iphone4 reach India???

[KanagaDeepan 1,084]

With the quantity of Fascinate ordered by RCom in India (998 units), I doubt iPhone CDMA coming to India...

[Genius 817]

When will CDMA Iphone4 reach India???

Its already reached Tushar is selling it - chk in Buy/sell

[Karthik R 246]

He must have meant 'officially' reaching Indian shores!

[parin 857]

ip4 GSM ka pata nahi

CDMA dur ki bat hai

Fascinate is coming after more than one year of launch

[kesav 127]

He must have meant 'officially' reaching Indian shores!

Exactly......

[faizca 5]

Apple Cutting Orders For CDMA iPhones

Apple is cutting orders for CDMA iPhones from its manufacturing partner Pegatron, according to a report at DigiTimes.

The Taiwanese paper says, "Pegatron originally expected to ship 10 million CDMA iPhone 4s in 2011, but sources from upstream component makers pointed out that Apple's orders already saw a significant reduction and the volume is estimated to drop to only five million units."

Apple's Verizon iPhone runs on a CDMA network. Last quarter Verizon said it activated 2.2 million iPhones, and it forecasted 11 million activations for the year.

So it doesn't look like Apple's CDMA phone sales are falling off.

On its earnings call, Verizon execs said Apple's next iPhone would be a "global device," suggesting it would have a dual GSM-CDMA chip in it.

If they are switching to a new chip, or a new device later this year, perhaps Pegatron would be cutting its orders of CDMA phones for that reason.

source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/04/28/businessinsider-apple-cdma-iphone-orders-2011-4.DTL

[kesav 127]

It's mouth watering to hear that next version of IPhone will be a global Iphone (GSM+CDMA).

:Sorprendido:

Let us hope and pray Apple makes it OMH based too......

[KanagaDeepan 1,084]

iPhone5-Global mouth-watering??? YAH.. Even if our Gurus find difficult to unlock 1x and EV-DO, we can atleast get access to 3GSM for cheaper..

But OMH from an US CDMA operator???

[ankurcshah 112]

@kesav: It will surely not be OMH based,but the gurus here like sadik,hetal,tushar etc will make sure that it will be compatible with all the CDMA providers.

@ kanagadeepan. +1

[kesav 127]

As discussed in some other posts, my trust lies with China Telecom.

They've market and strength to force Apple to make it RUIM based, step towards to OMH.

[KanagaDeepan 1,084]

But I have read somewhere that even ChinaTelecom is NOT OMH complaint... They support RUIMs and NOT OMH... In that case , lets NOT have our hopes too high...

[kesav 127]

As discussed already, China is actually a huge market for OMH although it's not OMH-complaint

[Karthik R 246]

Apple has released iOS 4.3.3 for owners of its I-things to fix what it has called a location tracking 'bug'. The new version reduces the size of the cache, no longer backs up the cache to Itunes and deletes the cache entirely when location services are turned off.

[parin 857]

CHinese are already started USIN Iphone4CDMA & Also they have got there hands on Data