iOS 8 strikes an unexpected blow against location tracking

It wasn't touted onstage, but a new iOS 8 feature is set to cause havoc for location trackers, and score a major win for privacy. As spotted by Frederic Jacobs, the changes have to do with the MAC address used to identify devices within networks. When iOS 8 devices look for a connection, they randomize that address, effectively disguising any trace of the real device until it decides to connect to a network.

ANY PHONE USING IOS 8 WILL BE INVISIBLE TO THE PROCESS

Why are iPhones checking out Wi-Fi networks in disguise? Because there's an entire industry devoted to tracking customers through that signal. As The New York Times reported last summer, shops from Nordstrom's to JC Penney have tried out the system. (London even tried out a system using public trash cans.) The system automatically logs any phone within Wi-Fi range, giving stores a complete record of who walked into the shop and when. But any phone using iOS 8 will be invisible to the process, potentially calling the whole system into question.

A PRIVACY WIN FOR APPLE

Combined with inventory and in-store video, the records are immensely valuable to stores as marketing data, and companies like Euclid Analytics and Path Intelligence have made an industry out of providing them. But now that Apple has embraced MAC spoofing, the practice of Wi-Fi sniffing may stop working entirely. With more than one in three US smartphones running iOS, and a notoriously fast adoption cycle for new operating systems, any data collected is likely to leave out a huge sector of the population.

The result is a privacy win for Apple users and a major blow against data marketing — and all it took was an automatic update.

iOS 8 adoption target for iPad

People are always comparing iOS to Android and this has generated some interesting debates, as there are pros and cons for both platforms, but when it comes to adoption rates for a new version of either mobile OS, well it is Apple that claims the prize. Adoption rates are always higher for a new version of iOS because it is always compatible with almost all iPads, iPhones and iPod touches.

A recent study from Chitika’s analytics team has found that iOS 7 adoption for the iPad was 85 percent, which compared to 82.9 percent for iOS 6 is considered a great achievement. It is for this very reason why we believe that Apple will have an even greater iOS 8 adoption target for the iPad.

According to Chitika there has been greater growth in people using iOS 7 on the iPad over the last 3 months, which makes sense because some iOS users put off installing a new version until they know it is as stable and all the kinks have been ironed out.

We know that iOS 7 still has its issues, but it is far better than when it was first released. However, we hope to see what Apple has planned for iOS 8 on Monday during WWDC 2014. Apple will not go into as much detail as they usually do, as there is to be a greater focus on OS X 10.10 , but we should find out some of the main iOS 8 features.

One feature we hope to see is support for iOS to OS X AirDrop , as no doubt this could help increase adoption rate because this is something we have been wanting for several years now. It’s not just the iPad that had an increased adoption rate with iOS 7, as the iPhone also saw an increase to 89.7 percent, but we have to warn that these figures might not be as accurate, although there is still a clear increase.