• TechCrunch, Friday, July 30, 2010 12:27 PM

With location-based digital services booming, Apple is moving to take complete control of its own location database, TechCrunch reports. "For devices running iPhone OS versions 1.1.3 to 3.1, Apple relied on (and still relies on) databases maintained by Google and Skyhook Wireless ("Skyhook") to provide location-based services," Apple's general counsel, Bruce Sewell, recently wrote in a letter to Congress. "Beginning with the iPhone OS version 3.2 released in April 2010, Apple relies on its own databases to provide location-based services and for diagnostic purposes."

As TechCrunch explains: "In other words, since iPhone OS 3.2 (since renamed "iOS") which shipped on the iPad, and continuing with the new iOS 4, Apple is now in complete control of the location services on the iPhone (and iPad/iPod touch)." Further testing consumers' patience over privacy and personal information sharing, reports emerged last month that Apple was collecting the "precise," "real-time geographic location" of iPhone, iPad and even computer users. To cover its back, Apple updated its privacy policy with a paragraph noting that once users agree, Apple and unspecified 'partners and licensees' may collect and store user location data.

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