iPhone Tracking Pinchmedia Isn’t Spyware

Doin’ the research I do for theneocell.com, I’ve come across a company called “Pinchmedia” a long time ago. It’s a company that helps out app developers. How’s it help them? It allows developers to track the usage of their apps.

But here’s what you need to know… there are some blogs online that are calling Pinchmedia spyware. Why are they sayin’ it’s spyware? They’re sayin’ it’s spyware because it sends back information about you to Pinchmedia, which then shares it on with the developers. The information they collect is your iPhone model, OS model, location (if you agree to allow the app to know your location), and if you happen to have the Facebook app installed, it access the Facebook app to find out your age and gender.

The app developers don’t ask your permission to collect information, and that’s the reason why some (I repeat, some) people online are claiming that it’s spyware. Their main smoking gun in calling this “spyware” is the fact you can’t “opt out” of the tracking.

Well I’m here to let y’all in on a little secret… it ain’t spyware. It ain’t. It’s not tracking where you go online, what you shop for, what search trends you use, what information you you type out… it’s not. “But it tracks where you are based on your GPS location…!” So ironic, because the very blogs and forums cryin’ bloody murder are tracking YOU! They’re tracking where your logging in from, down to the city, they’re tracking what operating system you use, what browser you use, what language you use, what connection your using (cable, DSL, ect), how long you’ve spent on the site, whether you’re new to the site or returning, what search engine terms you used to find the site, whether you “bounced” as soon as you came to the site, ect… Oh, and they don’t ask your permission to track information about you… or any of their other visitors, and they don’t give you any way to “opt out” either. In fact, I’m tracking you… But it’s not spyware, it’s Google Analytics.

Google Analytics is a great, free service from Google that helps web site developers, such as bloggers (yo), track the usage of their web sites. Hmm… sound familiar? This is the same thing Pinchmedia is doing with apps that Google Analytics is doing with web sites. There’s ways to block Google Analytics so that web sites can’t access data from you… but ohh, I don’t see any of these web sites that cry “fowl” showin’ you how to do it. Why? Because Google Analytics is harmless. That’s the same for Pinchmedia. Why do you think so many apps have signed up for their free service? Same reason so many web sites have signed up for Google Analytics.

Google Analytics helps web site owners see what they’re doing right, what they’re doing wrong and helps them try to analyse what they can do to improve. And Pinchmedia helps app developers see what they’re doing right, what they’re doing wrong and helps them try to analyse what they can do to improve. I do admit the connecting to the Facebook app to access your age and sex is very disturbing (it’s done through Facebook Connect, which Pinchmedia explains here), but you know what? The very fact of having a Facebook account opens you up to that already because Facebook sells your data (age, sex, location, trends, ect) to companies, and do you honestly think  no one who cries “bloody murder” about Pinchmedia doesn’t have a Facebook account themselves (perfectly fine with whatever Facebook is doing to their data, as long as they get to post retarded crap on their “friend’s” walls).

So no… Pinchmedia isn’t spyware. It’s just another form of user statistic tracking. Google Analytics is a great, free tool for me and thousands of web sites out there. I’m sure app developers think the same thing about Pinchmedia, especially considering it’s free. If you don’t like user statistic tracking and wanna’ take a stand against it, then stop visiting the very blogs giving you this information, including using the Cydia app or jailbreaking your device.

That’s right, the Dev-team blog uses Google Analytics. As well as Cydia, the jailbroken app store that we get tools to block Pinchmedia, the home page that the Cydia app access every time, cydia.saurik.com (created by Saurik, the same person who creates the Pitchmedia blocking software), contains Google Analytics. And for the recording, Saurik doesn’t call Pinchmedia (or other companies like them) bad, he’s just allowing you a way to “opt out”. Not to mention theneocell.com does also.

And as for the “iPhone Spyware Blog”, well shoot… it’s a blog hosted at blogger.com, a Google-run service, which is they truly were against analytics tracking, they wouldn’t have signed up for a service that runs the biggest analytics service in the world and would have gone to something like wordpress.com for free blog hosting. In reality though, I’m sure the person doesn’t know anything about analytics tracking and signed up for a Google-owned Blogger account to try and catch in on their 15 minutes of manipulated, misinformed “iPhone spyware” fame. (After all, it worked, didn’t it?)

People need to stop miscategorizing iPhone app analytics as “spyware” because it’s either gonna’ do two harmful things to the public’s perception of things. It’s either gonna’ make people think “spyware” is not something harmful or bad, because Pinchmedia is no more bad or harmful than Facebook or Google Search (no more than your typical public activist’s caution of your privacy), or people are going to start thinking iPhone apps from the app store are in fact harmful or bad (the definition of actual spyware), which is wrong for anyone to be misinformed like that.

Don’t be fooled. Don’t take my word on it, or any others, use your own common sense.

Peace, J

(And just to show some realness on my part, I’m gonna’ show you how you can opt ouf of Google Analytics.)

Jailbreak For OS 3.0.1

You guys hear about the text message security hole found in iPhones? If ya haven’t, in a nutshell, one person found a way to send SMS control (text) messages to iPhones that can either make them not respond for a short time, or take limited control of them. Don’t worry… it ain’t all that.

Basically, someone would have to rediscover this hole in iPhones (something unlikely for anyone to do), then know the phone number of someone who has an iPhone… then send them all these text messages… and for what, to bug someone who’s got an iPhone? Man, I ain’t worried about it myself… and not just because i can’t even receive text messages, but the odds of someone discovering this bug again, and then hitting you with it, the odds are about as good as you winnin’ the lottory.

But, there is a fit for it… Apple released a patch, OS 3.0.1, that plugs up the hole. And, here’s the best part… people who are jailbroken, like me (via Redsn0w), are able to upgrade to the OS 3.0.1 and then jailbreak with Redsn0w (using the same Redsn0w files). Basically, you’ll need to reinstall your OS and then rejailbreak.

But I ain’t doin’ it… ya know? I mean, this isn’t something you need to go out and do. I’m waiting on patches that fix things that effect things we actually do or use. You can if you want, but I’m not updating…

Peace, J

Dev-team Ain’t The Only Game In Town

So, so, so… the Dev-team ain’t the only game in town? Someone else is releasing a jailbreak for the iPhone 3GS? I can’t help but grin at this news…

Check it, some dude that goes by “GeoHot” has… well let me let you read…

“George Hotz — who gained fame last year as the first to post an unlocking utility for the new Apple iPhone — has unveiled a new utility that he claims enables iPhone 3G S users to download, install, and utilize the applications of their choice, outside of Apple’s and AT&T’s control”

This dude has released the jailbreak for the iPhone 3GS. It’s not an unlock (at this point, that don’t matter because the only people able to get iPhone 3GS’s are people locked into a contract with AT&T), but it’s what the Dev-team has been holding out from people. The Dev-team said they were keeping the jailbreak from the public to protect what they seem to consider “the last hole”, but this dude makes a lotta’ sense…

“Normally I don’t make tools for the general public, and rather wait for the dev team to do it. But guys, whats up with waiting until 3.1? That isn’t how the game is played. We release, Apple fixes, we find new holes. It isn’t worth waiting because you might have the ‘last’ hole in the iPhone. What last hole…this isn’t golf. I’ll find a new one next week.”

Now the dude could just be showin’ off, about being able to find a new hole… but then again, this one dude (versus a whole “team” at Dev-team) found the first unlock hole for iPhone 3G’s.

I do, at times, find the Dev-team to seem a little smug and arrogant… so I’m glad that someone, like this dude, released a jailbreak outside of the Dev-team. From reading some of the comments on the Dev-team blog, about the delay of the jailbreak for the iPhone 3GS, those that support the Dev-team’s choice to delay… said stuff like “you all are so ungrateful… if I were them, I wouldn’t release anymore jailbreaks and give you something real to complain about”.

I thought about that, and got kinda’ a sick feelin’ in my gut, like, “****, are we really that dependant on these people? They can just screw us over if they choose… we really can’t ever speak out against them because, if we do, they can just say screw it and leave us hangin’…”. So that’s why I’m so glad to see this happen. They can’t just claim to be our savors… and then decide not to listen to the community. If they do, **** like this will happen. Good job GeoHot.

Peace, J

No Jailbreak Push Notification

Most of you that are runnin’ the jailbroken OS 3.0 should know by now, but the Dev-team hasn’t figured out how to get push notifications working for our jailbroken versions of OS 3.0 yet.

What’s this mean? This means none of us runnin’ any jailbroken version of OS 3.0 has push notifications. They’re trying to figure how why it’s not working, and hopefully once when they get a jailbroken version of OS 3.1 created after OS 3.1 is released, they’ll figure out why push notifications don’t work.

Kinda’ sucks… no, really sucks. It’d be great to have that for IM apps. But yo, I ain’t complainin’. I care more about more features being released for Backgrounder than push notifications personally. I can minimize an IM app to the background if I really have to. Although, minimizing drails battery life so bad, push notifications wouldn’t.

Peace, J