Many people, yours truly included use iPhones because we want our data to remain private. Well that appears that it isn’t the case. A security researcher named Tommy Mysk has discovered that regardless of whether you allowed your iPhone to send analytics data to Apple or not, iPhones and specifically Apple apps were sending that data anyway. Gizmodo broke this news over the weekend and their story is very much worth reading as it goes deep into the weeds about this. But the bottom line is that it blows up Apple’s privacy argument in epic fashion.
Gizmodo also reports that a class action lawsuit has been filed in California. Which is understandable because Apple trades on the privacy mantra and it appears that it doesn’t actually follow through on that. Now Apple hasn’t commented on this, but this has got to be a 9-1-1 event for the company. I would not at all be surprised if a bunch of software updates come out in the next couple of weeks or so to address everything that has been discovered. Then I would not at all be surprised if Apple makes some comment to suggest it was an oversight and there’s nothing to see here. Finally I fully expect that Apple’s iLawyers will try to get this lawsuit to go away as quickly as possible. Because Apple as a company that is under a lot of scrutiny from a variety of sources. Thus is is a problem that they do not need right now.
This is not a good look at all for Apple.