Hasta La Gadget!

1. Why is Apple tracking the location of my iPhone?
Apple is not tracking the location of your iPhone. Apple has never done so and has no plans to ever do so.

The big hubbub that arose last week around location tracking within the iPhone has now received its due response from Apple itself. Firstly, the Cupertino company claims it does not, and has no plans to, track users’ iPhones. What it’s actually doing is “maintaining a database of Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers around your current location,” which are then used to provide speedier calculation of your position when you want to use the device’s maps or other location-based services. The data collection that was recently brought to the public attention represents, according to Apple, the location of WiFi hotspots and cell towers around you, not your actual iPhone. Still, the fact iPhones have been shown to store as much as a year’s worth of data is considered a bug by Apple, who plans to limit that period to a week in a future software update. The additional issue of data being collected after users turned off Location Services is also a bug, also to be fixed by Apple in that upcoming update. Left unanswered, however, are the questions of when Apple “uncovered” these bugs, as it claims, and why the fix for them is only coming now. Specialists have known about this behavior since at least September of last year. Either way, the software remedy is promised over the next few weeks, while the next major iteration of iOS should encrypt the cache file that’s been the subject of all the scrutiny. You’ll find the full Q&A after the break.

P.S. — One of Apple’s answers seems to disclose an extra bit of new information: “Apple is now collecting anonymous traffic data to build a crowd-sourced traffic database with the goal of providing iPhone users an improved traffic service in the next couple of years.”

Continue reading Apple officially answers questions on location tracking, says it doesn’t do it

Apple officially answers questions on location tracking, says it doesn’t do it originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 27 Apr 2011 08:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Yesterday’s speculation has turned into today’s fact. The ultraslim Lenovo ThinkPad X1 is most definitely real, coming soon, and just so happens to be packing some fancy new battery technology as well. This intel comes straight from Lenovo’s own servers, where a highly informative PDF (intended for reseller partners, but accessible to all) dishes the dirt on the upcoming laptop. The X1’s “slice” battery won’t be user-replaceable, but what you lose in flexibility will be made up for in sheer performance gains, as Lenovo is touting it’ll last three times as long as a normal battery and will recharge 2.5 times faster than previous ThinkPad cells. That’s thanks to some fanciness named RapidCharge that will revitalize the X1 to 80 percent within 30 minutes. The presentation slides show the X1 right alongside Lenovo’s latest Edge models, the E420s and E220s, as part of “a new generation of ThinkPads,” and given that both of those are now shipping, the ultraslim, but still unannounced, X1 can’t be far behind. Finally, just for some added intrigue, we’ve also spotted mention of an “X Slate” within the document — any ideas as to what that might look like?

[Thanks, Alexandr]

Continue reading Lenovo ThinkPad X1 confirmed, faster-charging integrated battery detailed

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 confirmed, faster-charging integrated battery detailed originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 24 Apr 2011 13:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We first caught wind of Comcast’s 105Mbps broadband plans back in May of last year, but the time since then has been filled with silence until this very moment, when the service has gone official. Neither the name nor basic concept have changed, however, with the Extreme 105 offering 105Mbps download speeds tied to 10Mbps uploads. Pricing has been tweaked a little, starting at $105 a month for the first year when taken up as part of a Triple Play bundle. Comcast claims coverage of 40 million people with its new rollout, including folks in Baltimore, Chicago, Denver, Miami, Philadelphia, Portland, San Francisco, Washington DC, and “the majority” of Boston. More markets will come “on a rolling basis.” So what say you, are 105 megabits per second worth 105 dollars per month?

Continue reading Comcast Extreme 105 serves up 105Mbps internet speeds for home users with deep pockets

Comcast Extreme 105 serves up 105Mbps internet speeds for home users with deep pockets originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 14 Apr 2011 09:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We were just pondering this very thing yesterday — would Intel dedicate itself to Thunderbolt and give USB 3.0 the cold shoulder — and now we have our answer from the Santa Clara crew, albeit delivered from Beijing. The Chinese capital is the site of Intel’s currently ongoing developer conference, which is where Kirk Skaugen, VP of the company’s Architecture Group, assured the world that the promise for native USB 3.0 support in Intel chipsets will be fulfilled. Not this year, mind you, but it’ll be with us in 2012 as part of the Ivy Bridge CPU refresh. That matches AMD’s plans to support USB 3.0 in Fusion APUs, and was augmented with a strong word of endorsement from Skaugen about the connector’s future. He urged developers to embrace USB 3.0 on an equal footing with Intel’s proprietary Thunderbolt interconnect, describing the two technologies as “complementary.” If you say so, captain.

Intel to support USB 3.0 alongside Thunderbolt, coming with Ivy Bridge in 2012 originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 14 Apr 2011 04:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Nokia X7, everybody! Like the E7, this is a 4-inch AMOLED handset with an 8 megapixel EDoF camera, though unlike its more buttoned-down business-oriented sibling, this is an entertainment handset through and through. Check it out in pictures below and we’ll bring you more impressions of it and the new Symbian “Anna” UI very shortly. Video forthcoming too!

Update: Video now embedded after the break. We can’t yet speak of the improvements Nokia has made on the browser front, but its long overdue inclusion of a virtual portrait QWERTY keyboard is much appreciated, as is the real-time home screen scrolling. It’s still not as smooth as you’d see on other devices that have been doing it for a while, but it’s preferable to what we had in the older Symbian iteration.

Physically, the X7 is a pleasure to hold and to handle, a hallmark of Nokia construction, but we must once again protest at the so-called nHD resolution of 640 x 360 on this device. It’s justified by the need to keep consistency with the company’s existing ecosystem, but it’s a step behind the cutting edge. At least it’s composed of the delectable AMOLED stuff that Nokia’s been using lately, and colors and images look positively delicious, if a little pixel-light. Stereo speakers at the bottom and a generally svelte profile make it an appealing little pocket rocket for multimedia, but bear in mind it comes with a 680MHz processor, so it can record and play back 720p video, but may be challenged by more intensive tasks.

Continue reading Nokia X7 first hands-on! (updated with video)

Nokia X7 first hands-on! (updated with video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 12 Apr 2011 04:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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