I just recently read an article at Mashable.com saying that the iPhone is tracking and storing your location. This is of course exiting/scary news so I couldn’t resist to try it out my self. The picture shows the data stored on my iPhone since I bought it. It reminded me that I spent Christmas at my sisters place and that I need to go on holiday soon (haven’t left Denmark for a long time).

According to Pete Warden and Alasdair Allan, the researchers who discovered this, it is still unclear what Apple’s intentions are but you could say that it is somewhat unethical or at least questionable that we are letting someone track your whereabouts like this.

So the questions are:
- Is it OK that private companies track you whereabouts like this?
- What about Google, Facebook etc.?
- What if it was your Government who did this?

This matter calls for two things: a debate about privacy and a plea to Apple to sync the data with FourSquare so I can get my badges…

Read article at Mashable.com: http://mashable.com/2011/04/20/iphone-location-history/

Article in the Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/apr/20/iphone-tracking-prompts-privacy-fears

Try it out yourself: http://petewarden.github.com/iPhoneTracker/

The TigerText is here. The textmessage that will self-destruct after a given period of time. The purpose of the system is to obtain complete privacy over certain text-messages. This is how it works… You decide a certain text needs to delete it-self after, say 15 minutes, and then send it. If the receiver have the TigerText-app installed (of course it’s for iPhone) then the text will be deleted from both phones AND the server. Pretty neat if you are doing hanky-panky being the back of your spouse.

But is this deal only for the unfaithful? Well, what about the business-ideas that pop up? This app could function very well as a system for sending limited-time offers to loyal customers or maybe as a password reminder? Let’s take the first one. Say you have a webshop and you want your loyal customers to react quickly to a limited-time offer. You send a text containing a “promo-code” which will self-destruct (I like self-destruct better then delete – It’s more Mission Impossible-like) after 24 hours. The message will only be visible for this amount of time and after that everybody avoids the frustration of trying to enter a “promo-code” that isn’t active anymore.
The password-reminder scenario is very much alike. Lot’s of websites have a “new password generator” that is only active for 24 hours, which again presents the users with frustration if they are too late. Here they have it right on their display: As long as the message is visible, the “new password” is active.

Final note: The people behind the service claim that the name has nothing to do with the Tiger Woods scandal. “It’s just because a real tiger is so good at deleting it’s trails…” I don’t know about you, but i’m not buying it. Of course it’s a reference to Tiger Woods, no doubt about it.

TigerText is also coming for Blackberry and Android.

Update: A kind reader, Mikel, just mentioned that the app is not available in Denmark yet. Too bad for cheating men and women with iPhones…