Apple iPhone + Unsupported Rumours = Big News Day
Posted on 08 August 2008, at 11:15 am, by Christopher Gavula
Well the Internet media is at it again.
I posted a commentary a while back about how rumour and unsubstantiated conjecture are often posted as “fact” these days. I indicated that you, the reader, really need to do your research and not take these “news” postings at their face value. Well now there’s another “big one” floating around out there. According to the story – Apple has a list stored on the iPhone of unauthorized apps. Further, the phone will periodically call Apple and check and Apple then has the ability to kill that app. This has got a whole lot of people really riled up. Unfortunately, it’s not exactly how the story goes.
Read on after the break to see what was actually said.
The original statements are generally attributed to Jonathan Zdziarski, who has written a couple of books about the iPhone, including one on iPhone development, and one on iPhone Forensics. If you look at his actual blog at http://www.zdziarski.com/, you will see what he really said which was simply that he found this list, buried in the CoreLocation services area of the iPhone (that manages access to the GPS and location services) and that he didn’t know what it was for. He speculated, however what it might be for, but he wasn’t sure. He later updated his blog and confirmed that he was able to use the list to restrict access to the GPS (which is why it is in the CoreLocation servcices area), but he couldn’t confirm anything further – no app deletion, or any of the other things that have been incorrectly reported. He suggested that Apple should come forward and officially explain what the list is for. He will likely post more later, but for now – that’s all he said.
Now this morning, Darling Fireball is reporting that a source at Apple says the list is to block apps from getting to CoreLocation services – in other words, to keep your location private. That’s why the list is in CoreLocation services rather than elsewhere on the phone. But again, this is an unconfirmed source. I’m sure we’ll here more as this progresses.
The Internet media has called Apple “Big Brother” and said that if MS did it it would be front page news but because Apple did it it’s buried. I say no – it’s not buried at all but if it was it would have been because it was just a speculative comment, not a fact.
Yes – Apple should officially answer some questions and people should be concerned about the possibilities here, but everyone needs to STOP calling speculation and rumour “fact” and “news”. It’s not.
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August 8th, 2008 at 11:22 am
umm, ok. Sorta. Kinda.
Don’t most apps make use of some type of digital signature.
Is there another precedence (outside of spammy trojan stuff) for a public URL that is used to ok a program for access of any type.
I’m not so sure the overall tone of “Big Brother” is totally off the mark. Is it overstating the importance of this online list?
I don’t know? Fact is nobody knows.
I saw Daring Fireball this morning — and really I think his is just another opinion. I wasn’t really swayed one way or the other.
I still find it odd that there is a URL that possibly the phone dials into – and yeah, I think it’s newsworthy and warrants mention as a possible issue.
August 8th, 2008 at 11:31 am
Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying that this kind of thing isn’t newsworthy. Not at all. It is. What I’m saying is that the speculative items are being reported as fact, not speculation. The story was being reported as “Apple can delete apps” and that simply hasn’t been substantiated. Period. It should be reported as supposition NOT fact.
August 8th, 2008 at 12:01 pm
I agree. That’s why I titled my bit on what was causing the iPhone performance hits as “Spectulation – …” I could see that one getting around the internet very quickly as fact as well. The premise for that was very logical…