Apple today officially acknowledged the growing controversy over the logging of location data on the iPhone and iPad. The document comes in a Q&A format. In it, Apple addresses some common concerns and explicitly states that it is not tracking the location of your iPhone/iPad, has never done so, and has no plans to do so.
Apple goes on to explain the reason for the logging of data:
Why is my iPhone logging my location? The iPhone is not logging your location. Rather, its 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 phones 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.
Apple states that all data that is transmitted to Apple is anonymous and encrypted and can not be tied to the identity of the user. The company also notes findings that the database continues to grow despite location services being off is a bug that will soon be addressed.
Apple is planning on releasing a free iOS update in the next few weeks that performs the following:
- 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.
Thursday November 13, 2025 11:35 am PST by Juli Clover
Apple today released new firmware designed for the AirPods Pro 3, the AirPods 4, and the prior-generation AirPods Pro 2. The AirPods Pro 3 firmware is 8B25, while the AirPods Pro 2 and AirPods 4 firmware is 8B21, all up from the prior 8A358 firmware released in October.
There's no word on what's include in the updated firmware, but the AirPods Pro 2, AirPods 4 with ANC, and AirPods Pro 3...
Saturday November 15, 2025 2:40 pm PST by Joe Rossignol
Apple is preparing for Tim Cook to step down as CEO of the company "as soon as next year," according to the Financial Times.
The company's board of directors and senior executives "recently intensified preparations for Cook to hand over the reins," the report said.
While the report said that Apple is unlikely to name a new CEO before its next earnings report in late January, it went on to ...
Friday November 14, 2025 6:20 am PST by Joe Rossignol
Apple recently teamed up with Japanese fashion brand ISSEY MIYAKE to create the iPhone Pocket, a limited-edition knitted accessory designed to carry an iPhone.
iPhone Pocket is available to order on Apple's online store starting today, in the United States, France, China, Italy, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, and the United Kingdom. However, it is already completely sold out in the United...
Friday November 14, 2025 3:23 pm PST by Juli Clover
Most of Apple's Macs are slated to get M5 chips across 2026, and there's a possibility we'll even see the first M6 chips toward the end of the year. Updates are planned for everything from the MacBook Air to the Mac Studio.
MacBook Air (Early 2026)
The MacBook Air will be one of the first Macs to get a 2026 refresh, with an update planned for the first few months of the year. The MacBook...
We're officially in the month of Black Friday, which will take place on Friday, November 28 in 2025. As always, this will be the best time of the year to shop for great deals, including popular Apple products like AirPods, iPad, Apple Watch, and more. In this article, the majority of the discounts will be found on Amazon.
Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with some of these vendors. When ...
Friday November 14, 2025 10:02 am PST by Joe Rossignol
Starting with the upcoming tvOS 26.2 update, currently in beta, additional profiles created on the Apple TV no longer require their own Apple Account.
In the Settings app on the Apple TV, under Profiles and Accounts, anyone can create a new profile by simply entering a name and indicating whether the profile is for a kid. The profile will be associated with the primary user's Apple Account,...
Walmart's Black Friday sale has officially kicked off today, with an online shopping event that's also seeing some matching deals in retail locations. There are quite a few major discounts in this sale, including savings on headphones, TVs, and more.
Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with Walmart. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment, which helps us...
Thursday November 13, 2025 6:48 am PST by Joe Rossignol
iOS 26 extended pinned conversations in the Messages app to CarPlay, for quick access to your most frequent chats. However, some drivers may prefer the classic view with a list of individual conversations only, and Apple now lets users choose.
Apple released the second beta of iOS 26.2 this week, and it introduces a new CarPlay setting for turning off pinned conversations in the Messages...
Sunday November 16, 2025 6:49 am PST by Joe Rossignol
In his Power On newsletter today, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reiterated that Tesla plans to add Apple CarPlay support to its vehicles "in the coming months."
This is easily the biggest news for the regular version of CarPlay in years, should Tesla actually follow through with offering the system in its vehicles.
As noted by Gurman, this would be a stunning reversal for Tesla and its CEO Elon ...
Apple's only screw up here was keeping the infinite database forever on your phone and backed up to your Mac. Their was no reason to back it up to the computer and no reason to keep the data on the phone after it was passed to Apple (encrypted, de-identified etc.) but I suspect the reason was simply "we weren't doing anything bad with it so we never even considered we should delete it later."
Good job Apple. Now let's move on to someone else, like freakin' Sony and their Playstation network.
A lot of people are upset over this. But, no one seems to care that the US Government can snoop on any electronic communication it wants for well over 10 years now: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echelon_(signals_intelligence)
Data transmissions, cell phone calls, you name it. I think we're trying to cook the wrong goose if you ask me.
Poo. I'd rather have the option to keep backing up that cache file to iTunes. I like the ability to see a map of where I've been using the iPhoneTracker app. :(
I thought they said that there was not any concerns?
There aren't any concerns, but since the media hyped this up so much, they had to address it. Now they have. Should be the end of the story. But it won't be since there are anti-Apple folks who will push to keep this story alive as long as they can until the next Apple-gate story gets created.
