iApps Development Blog
iApps Development Blog
Location Tracking
Followers of my spamwars.com blog would probably rate me well above average on the privacy paranoia scale. At the same time, I know that unless you go completely off the grid with a hoard of cash stuffed in your sock, you leave more trails than a diarrheic rabbit.
Like plenty of other iPhone users, I checked out the quickie Mac app (iPhoneTracker), which reads the consolidated.db file that gets synced to your iTunes computer during a backup. Before I could even nuke a bag of popcorn, I had to hit the Play button to watch the movie of my life’s movements over the past 10-or-so months.
The story didn’t start out very well in the realism department. About the second week of the history, my iPhone supposedly spent a fair amount of time just northwest of Las Vegas. Not one hit around The Strip, mind you. But several along the US-95 and NV-157 roadways, frequently far from the hustle-bustle of...anybody. From the complete map, one would draw the conclusion that I spent the majority of iPhone-on time in Nevada, rather than the San Francisco area — where I actually spent the week. I haven’t been to Las Vegas in probably 10 years, and have never ever been as far north of the city as my rabbit trail indicated.
Then I checked the time period when I drove from the Bay Area to San Diego last September for iPhone DevCon. I drove the heavily-traveled I-5 route down the spine of California. There is excellent cell coverage the whole way, and it takes a number of hours to reach at least the L.A. area. Despite my round-trip ride, there were giant gaps in my trip record. It’s as though I had used a Star Trek transporter to get from San Jose to Santa Clarita because there was no evidence I had been anywhere in between. A snoop would also be hard-pressed to determine the freeways I took to get from downtown Los Angeles to San Diego because there isn’t a hit along the path until around Encinitas. Although I sailed through the area on my way down, I sat in a couple L.A. midday traffic jams on the way back — plenty of time to ping my phone.
I suppose my main beef with this whole tracking history isn’t that it’s happening behind my back. It’s that it isn’t accurate enough. How could I prove to my boss that I was in Sacramento to close the Thompson deal when my phone claims I was in Las Vegas? Yikes!
Thursday, April 21, 2011