Tag: Android

iPhone Tracking? It’s A Non-Issue.

Yesterday it was announced that your iPhone was tracking everywhere you’ve been and saving it to a file that’s copied to your computer when you synch your device.

Data Presented From Finders of iPhone Tracking

In case you haven’t seen the story someplace on the web, here’s an article about it on Mashable. It’s also now on the CNN home page – HERE

There are a lot of alarmists up in the air about this and Senator Al Franken has asked Apple to explain why it’s doing this.

I was going to write a wonderfully detailed blog post about it and why I thought it really wasn’t a big deal, but the incredibly smart and funny David Pogue beat me to it. Thanks for saving me some typing David!

In the end the only way someone can use this data and figure out where you’ve been is to download special software (which only shows some details) and pull this file off of your computer. As David Pogue put it “If your computer is that accessible, you’ve got much bigger problems.” He also makes a great point of saying only those that have something to hide, may have something to fear.

While you can’t change any setting to stop the tracking, you can (and I encourage you to) encrypt your iPhone back-ups. It’s incredibly easy to do and I’ve found some simple steps right HERE. Honestly everyone should be doing this from the get-go if they’re that worried about the security of their data.

If you’re really worried about the security of what’s on your iPhone you should have it lock and require a password to get into the device. Instructions on that are on the bottom of THIS PAGE.

I know some people feel like this is an invasion of privacy.
They have every right to feel that way.

To that I say in this day and age of Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube along with all the “check-ins” being done your information and location is out there already.

There’s  nothing to hide!

For those that are still incredibly fearful I’ll recommend as do with everyone else –
DON’T PUT YOUR INFORMATION ON OR GET CONNECTED TO THE INTERNET. Despite any password you have or protection you think you have on it, there’s no 100% security when it comes to computers. If someone really wants to get to your data, they’ll figure out a way and will be able to get around anything you put in the way.

That’s just my opinion, as has occasionally happened, I could be wrong. 🙂

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More Geek Posts…Now at the New Official C.A.R. Blog Site

Love my blog posts? Love the information I share? Looking for more?

Look no further than the official blog site of the California Association of REALTORS®!

No, it won’t be duplications of the blog posts here. It’ll be fresh, new content.
It will be content that’s “EXCLUSIVE” to the C.A.R. Blog!

It won’t be as often as here, but when one is posted it’ll be worth it.

The cool thing is, there’s lots of other great content that’s getting posted to the C.A.R. blog from my various colleagues.

You’ve got the master of words, Josh Sharfman who is bringing all kinds of great tech stuff.

Then you’ve got the queen of numbers, Sara Sutachan keeping you up to date with the latest market data.

Of course there’s going to also be posts from our C.A.R. social media organizer/maven/princess, the always charming Lindsey Moss.

In addition to these three fine folks, there’s also great posts from our communications, legal and legislative departments.

So what are you waiting for?

Go and check it out, and check out my first post on speeding up your iPad and iPhone!

My Blackberry Is Not Working!

Love those Brits!

Many thanks to Betty Thomas for passing this one on to me!

Verizon iPhone, At Long Last…Now Let The Domination Begin!

Back during the whole iPhone 4 “antennagate” issue, Apple held a brief press conference to address the concerns about the iPhone 4’s antenna. During the Q&A Steve Jobs said something to the effect of them having an AT&T as well as a Verizon cell tower on the Apple campus. The immediate question that came to mind was “Why the heck would they have a Verizon cell tower on the Apple campus, unless the iPhone is Verizon bound?”.

Sure enough the iPhone is coming to Verizon at long last, and on February 10th Verizon users will rejoice in the joy that is the iPhone.

Rumors Finally Confirmed

So with the iPhone now finally being available to the millions of Verizon customers I am going to make the prediction that by the end of the year the iPhone will be the dominant smartphone in the market. Let me tell you why…

1. While the Android is a fine device, it’s establishment has come from a couple of different fields.
– The folks who wanted an iPhone but didn’t want AT&T service, so they settled for
what they could get.

– The folks who like to tweak, hack, customize and modify their smartphone OS
without having to worry about “jailbreaking”.

That first group is an incredibly LARGE group and now that they can get an iPhone on Verizon you’re going to have a lot of converts. Not just internally from Verizon but from T-Mobile and Sprint as well.

2. The iPhone just works, you don’t have to do anything special to it, you connect it, you synch it and voila it works!
– A lot of tech guys will say that you should be able to do whatever you want
with  your OS and hardware. While this is fine for those that understand
computers to their core, the majority of the computer using public just wants
things to work. They want to turn it on, make their calls, text their friends and play Angry Birds.

3. Apps..there’s MILLIONS of them on the iTunes app store.

With a choice of networks, a choice of data plans and the fact that AT&T and Verizon are THE DOMINANT cell carriers it just seems a no brainer.

Now before you say that I am an Android hater, RELAX. I believe the Android is a very good device and yes I have spent some time with it. It’s great if you like being able to tweak settings and making it do all kinds of fancy stuff. But based on how I’ve seen my non-computer savvy friends use it, it’s more than they want or will ever need. Even me as a long time computer user I find that it’s more than I feel like dealing with anymore.

As for the Blackberry. I actually used to be a Crackberry addict. RIM had their chance and failed miserably not just with the touch hardware but the OS and its ability to run apps. As always it’s great for making calls and sending e-mails, but that’s it and I suspect all it will ever be good for.

We’ll see how things are at the end of the year and if I’m wrong I’ll admit it. This though is one tech prediction that I think I’ll nail.