Tracked by Apple

I downloaded an iPhone app called iPhone Tracker and ran it. Sure enough, it could read my phone’s location. See below.

But I’ve always had Location Services turned off. It still got recorded. Turns out the rumors online were true — this service runs in the background and can’t be turned off.

After using the iPhone 4 for a month, here’s a real and vivid record of my whereabouts. Listing them in detail to scare anyone with a guilty conscience:

• One trip to Wuxi for a small reunion with grad school roommates — recorded 3 small dots (one at a roommate’s district government office), and a midpoint at the hotel where I slept.
• Countless trips to Suzhou to see the baby (one medium black dot) — the Shanghai-Nanjing highway clearly recorded my driving轨迹.
• Qingming Festival trip to my wife’s hometown of Huzhou — recorded 3 tiny dots. A one-hour rest stop for He Shiqian’s diaper change, lunch, and milk — also recorded as a dot.
• Most of the time spent around Jiading campus and near home (two big black dots — the lower left is the training building, upper right is my home).
• Zooming in, there are dots on the Middle Ring Road — from taking the school bus.
• That day I went to West Beijing Road to buy a 3DS — recorded as a small dot.

Amazing. So I’m done with the iPhone 4 for now, using a WP7. I wonder if Microsoft does the same thing.