Just hours after a pair of U.S. Congressmen sent a letter to Apple requesting information on privacy practices, specifically as they relate to address book data being collected and stored by the apps' developers, Apple has issued a statement to AllThingsD indicating that the issue will be addressed in a forthcoming iOS software update.
“Apps that collect or transmit a user’s contact data without their prior permission are in violation of our guidelines,” Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr told AllThingsD. “We’re working to make this even better for our customers, and as we have done with location services, any app wishing to access contact data will require explicit user approval in a future software release.”
Apple has been testing iOS 5.1 for some time, but appears to have slowed development as the company is assumed to be waiting to release it to the public alongside the iPad 3 early next month. The company has not, however, specified whether the new address book permission feature will be included as part of iOS 5.1 or if it will arrive in the form of a separate update, perhaps as an iOS 5.0.2 update to enable a faster turnaround on the fix.
Apple's annual WWDC developers conference is drawing to a close, but there is still a lot to look forward to in the second half of the year.
Apple is expected to release at least 15 more products later this year. Now that the more intelligent and personal version of Siri has finally arrived in beta, a full two years after Apple first previewed it at WWDC 2024, we should begin to see some new ...
If you pay for extra iCloud storage on your iPhone, beyond the 5GB included for free, you might receive two more perks on iOS 27 at no additional cost.
First, Apple said there will be daily usage limits for some of the new and enhanced Apple Intelligence features on iOS 27, including image generation. However, the company noted that "increased access" is available with "most" iCloud+ storage ...
Apple will end software support for 16 devices this fall across four product lines, with the Apple Watch seeing the most sweeping cull in the product's history.
The full extent of this year's software drops became clear with the announcements of macOS 27 Golden Gate, iPadOS 27, tvOS 27, and watchOS 27 at WWDC this week. The one bright spot is that iOS 27 features identical device support to...
This is a good response from Apple, and yet another instance where Tim Cook is managing a potential PR issue a lot differently (and more effectively, IMO) than Steve Jobs. It's obvious from moves like this, to the non-announcement announcement at the Goldman Sachs call yesterday, that Tim Cook believes in a slightly more transparent Apple. It makes sense, and is good business.