In Apple's defense it is a hard thing to ask the user whether or not they want to permit "background app refresh". Many users might not understand at all what this means. It is not as easy to understand as "allow app to send you notifications" or "allow app to use your location".
Maybe Apple could force apps to request for each specific use case why they wants to be active in the background. Is it to enable basic functionality of the app or is it to track you? Would be great if the user could choose in which case to allow access and in which case not. Right now it is a blank check you give to each app and it is hard to tell whether the app abuses its permissions or not.
what happens if background refresh is on but location -> never?
It all depends on your cell provider. A lot of cellular providers use GCNATs so their whole customer base appears to connect from just a handful of IPs without any proxy headers (which is why doing a ip address geo location on yourself is giving you wrong info).
A few providers will give you a non nated IP on request (and usually for a fee). IPv6 should “fix” the issue.
Are you only concerned about transmitting your IP address to other third parties besides Apple? iOS is configured to automatically transmit the user's IP address to various Apple servers on a continual basis, e.g. time-osx.g.aaplimg.com. iOS users cannot change that configuration.
I don't think there's something stopping you from redirecting 123/udp to your own NTP server. This is another of the problems that are easily solved with a VPN.
Neither do I. I use local DNS and a router to block traffic to Apple servers.
Of course it would be easier to simply edit the operating system configuration files, if the device manufacturer did not try to prevent device owners from doing so.
I believe it says so in the fine print of the terms and condition we do not read. I could be wrong ofcourse.
I could not agree more. I cannot stand Yelp and was pretty bummed when they integrated Yelp into Apple Maps.
My guess is that Apple is already working on a plan to curtail these abuses -- or, rather, working on ways to make it easier for normal people to do so. Obviously if you're reading HD, you understand these issues better, and are more apt to use the tools already in iOS to limit bad behavior.
>they really should hold their partners to a much higher standard given all of their privacy rhetoric.
Agreed.
First thing I did with my wife's Iphone. I imagine that with that disabled and permissions set correctly , an iphone leaks less than an android.
Possibly the most surprising thing is that, unlike all other permissions, iOS didn't ask me directly before enabling background refresh. That's disturbing.
Also, while I sympathized with Apple outsourcing Maps' business info to Yelp, they really should hold their partners to a much higher standard given all of their privacy rhetoric.