Apple Will Fix Location Bug in iOS 4.3.3, Coming in the Next Two Weeks

by Alex on May 2nd, 2011 on IphoneDownloadBlog

Apple will be pushing an update to iOS in the next couple weeks that reportedly addresses the location tracking “bug” that has stormed the media. The iPhone’s location database retained too much tracking info, and Apple plans on fixing that issue in iOS 4.3.3.

A few minor bugs will be addressed, but iOS 4.3.3 looks like it will mainly focus on the iPhone’s location database.

Boy Genius Report has been told that iOS 4.3.3 will address,

• The update will no longer back up the location database to iTunes.
• The size of the location database will be reduced.
• The location database will be deleted entirely when Location Services are turned off.
• Battery life improvements.
• iPod bug fixes.

If you recall, Apple addressed what it would fix in an iOS update during the company’s Q&A on the location issue.

Sometime in the next few weeks Apple will release a free iOS software update that:

• reduces the size of the crowd-sourced Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower database cached on the iPhone
• ceases backing up this cache
• deletes this cache entirely when Location Services is turned off.
• In the next major iOS software release the cache will also be encrypted on the iPhone.

We saw 4.3.3 coming when there was such a strong response to the uncovering of the iPhone’s location database. Although it honestly seems like a non-issue, it’s nice to see that Apple is being responsive in fixing this “bug” with a quick update.

iOS 4.3.3 seems to be a minor update, so hopefully ic0n1c’s untethered exploit will remain unpatched for jailbreakers. Apple has grown more aggressive with patching exploits as of late, so only time will tell.

Twitter To Buy TweetDeck For $40 Million – $50 Million

By Michael Arrington

Twitter has acquired TweetDeck, we’ve heard from a source with knowledge of the deal, and the transaction will be announced in the next few days. The $40

million – $50 million purchase price includes both cash and Twitter stock, says our source.

In February we reported that an acquisition of TweetDeck by Bill Gross’ UberMedia was all but done, in the $25 – $30 million range. And that deal was in fact all but done. But Twitter quickly provided an unsolicited counter offer, and TweetDeck was in play again. TechCrunch EU has the full story on how that played out.

This deal is defensive for Twitter, say all the sources we’ve spoken with over the last couple of months. They simply couldn’t allow UberMedia to have so much market share in this space. The company has acquired UberTwitter, EchoFon and a number of other Twitter-related startups. Adding TweetDeck to the UberMedia stable of products would give them too much leverage over Twitter, say our sources, and so Twitter made a strong defensive bid to disrupt the deal. Which succeeded nicely, apparently.