C0re, random infos? Nope. These are facts, and even if those datas aren't harmful, it still is spying. Also, there are apps wich also steal your phone number. Harmless too? Also, the devs who are using these features know, that using them makes their apps spyware, but they still agree with it. Making devs bankrupts with cracked apps? I don't think. Did you see any developer going bankrupt because of piracy? I don't think.
If you had carefuly read my post, you would agree this is not spying. Let me explain once again : these infos are either declared with your permission, or with Apple's permission. Period. Of course this one is totally unacceptable for an app, but only if you never entered this phone number in iTunes, in which case we would be in the same scenario as gender from Facebook : unnecessary. Spying is the act of digging info outside of one aknowledged entity's perimeter. Where on earth an OS version, a device ID / model or even a GPS internal data (when you enabled your GPS) are outside any application's perimeter ?? Please think about it twice ... Because actually your argument sounds more like "you dev do bad things so we can do bad things too !", wthout even having checked how bad things are ... Yes there are some. Just google it. Furthermore, do you really wait for a dev to go bankrupt in order to start thinking about how piracy can be harmful ? All of these really sound like bad excuses to just not care about the people who create your toys.
Who said Apple doesn't care? Apple Blocks Jailbreak in New iPhone 3GS Units! Apple is now shipping the iPhone 3GS with a new Bootrom that is not vulnerable to the 24kpwn exploit. The iBoot-359.3.2 started to ship last week. A screenshot posted by Mathieulh shows the new version number. MuscleNerd from the iPhone Dev-Team has confirmed that the loss of the 24kpwn exploit would mean a normal jailbreak would be impossible for the time being. oh oh, from what @cpich3g + @Mathieulh have found so far, a normal untethered JB may be in jeopardy in brand new 3GS units http://www.iclarified.com/entry/index.php?enid=5560
Piracy is harmful in some cases, but not in every. For example, there's a great game called Civilization Revolution, wich I'd happily buy if it would be available in my country's App Store, but it isn't, still, according to some people here, using a cracked version of a game, I can't pay for is still piracy. Nope, I didn't allow it neither know about it. We can't read about it in the App Store description or turn it off in the app. If we could do any of those, it wouldn't be spying. Honestly? No idea, though my guesses are, that somehow telemarketers get your phone numbers. But there needs to be some point of doing it. Device ID and mode are useful for identifying a user and making statistics. But GPS datas? Honestly, no idea. Also, I've googled, yet didn't find any iDevice developer who went bankrupt.
Some developers have chosen to fight back by making their application crash randomly when it is determined to be pirated! That seems to be counter productive though, it would never earn you a sale for the app/game in question because the user would have no idea if those crashes were intentional or not. Personally, I'd just set it up to limit it to a "lite" game, even if only 1 in 233 pirates would cave in to buy the full game... that's one sale versus zero sales with the crashing version
This is a very, very particular case in which of course piracy is not harmful. But unfortunately, I can't believe all the hackers are from countries where apps are forbidden. iDevice ID / app version / model / OS (jailbroken or not) are generic, so they don't have to be in app description. This is not spying. It is like you would charge this very site for having access to your IP adress. Phone number gathering is not acceptable, I do agree once again. And believe me, Apple will catch these devs 10 times faster than devs would catch hackers. GPS is unuseful. Seriously, what can a dev do with your GPS info at a given time ? Put a white chalk cross on the bench you were sitting ? lol It is more like a cheap dissuasive measure to my eyes. http://www.joystiq.com/2009/01/30/world-of-goo-publisher-files-for-bankruptcy/ Hello ? Granted, World of Goo is not for iDevice. But do we really have to separate Indies from Xbox and Indies from iDevices ? edit : another case after 2 pages of Googling :
I think most of the people who think Pinch Media is spyware would be absolutely shocked to find out that almost every computer program and operating system phones home now days. Hell, Quantcast, the analytics package we use for Touch Arcade collects more data than Pinch Media.
I was thinking the same, but well, nope. [link] Right. But GPS isn't generic, so that is, even if it's useless. Ah well...
Yes, because they learned from the PSP... Being an owner of a PSP a while ago, I admittedly used to have a hacked PSP, I did not download ISO's or what not. (except ps1 eboots, why pay for something I already own) It took Sone till firmware 5.00 I believe (3 years after release) to actually make it not able to be CFWed. Thats a long time, and its still hackable through the Pandoras battery, one of the reasons that there have been so many different models is because the older one was easier to hack, so they would make a newer one. I remember the motherboard that I had on mine, TA-082... the easiest to hack... then with the release of the slim I believe their new one was unhackable for like a month... But thats when pandoras battery changed everything... Just a little lesson.
This is not tolerable, I agree. But I'm 90% sure that gathering a phone number from an app is simply not possible if the user didn't specify it on his iTunes account.
It seems that according to the article, forget which, pinchmedia is spyware but tracking on sites is not since there is no program installed collecting data. Which makes sense if you think about it. You wouldnt mind forum sites or google finding out where you go, since you're going to them for this service. But I sure as hell would not like google or other website vendors knowing if I'm editing pictures of my daughter, playing my daily dose of mame, or any other activities that are not online and that I'm not permitting them. I think pinchmedia is spyware no matter how generic the data is. And by coming here I dont mind my information being taken, I'm not even in my home computer. It's not really about people obtaining useless data to me, its about them obtaining data at all which is how most people think. Why else do you think people (few of them) have stopped using google? Because google saves all this data. No one wants that, plain and simple. As for the piracy, its becoming pointless. We know there's pirates, hope they stop, but they won't. After all, how long has pirating been around for PC programs? Another great example to see how it's affected devs is to look at Assasin's Creed by Ubisoft (parent company of gameloft) Pirating affects developers, both games and software. Its a sad fact of life,and no matter what kind of justification is made, the bottom line is that pirating hurts developers. As for pinch media, it wouldnt be such a bad thing if it only monitored online-only apps. But the fact its lurking there is what upsets people.
I just read that article about pinch media. And for those stating that this website collects data and that data is generic, this guy really puts it into perspective: I'm against piracy but i sure as heck dont want spyware in my phone either.
I can see how much this helps iphone app developers. But I still think its an invasion of privacy EVEN if it only tracks itself, meaning the app that runs it.
c0re, what you don't understand is that things such as pinchmedia collect unnecessary information, which, in most cases, the user cannot disable. It then sends this data over an unsecure connection to a server somewhere. Also, the harm with GPS tracking is that they know exactly where you are What? That's like if there was a law that said: You are allowed to kill people, only if they don't know about it and you have your own permission. WTF?
The point of getting information about piracy rates out in the open is that it is useful to potential developers to know expected return rates for the work it takes to make an game for the iPhone. The more people who know that you are likely to get 0-5 sales a day for a game, and the first copy you sell will be used to let 1000s of other people pirate the game for free, the better off the developers of the world will be. Also, if the people who want to complain about pinchmedia could create a separate thread for that discussion, it would let the topic get the attention it really deserves.
Hello touchArcade Seems to be getting a bit hot in this thread.. so I just thought I would share a couple of thoughts and re-iterate what some of you have already discussed. - The core issue (at least for me) has always been consent. Give the user options, problem solved. Let the user decide what is right for them. - Don't mix up pirated apps with purchased apps, all apps function the same from a metrics point of view. Though they may report slightly different information, e.g Jailbreak & Crack status - The phone number can be sampled from any iPhone application from within the iPhone if you set the "My Number" field under Settings, Phone, My Number. Fortunately, there are some good options for Jailbroken users. - Use Saurik's great PrivaCy app from Cydia - Reilly's UDID Faker & my Hosts file both from the cydia.i-phone-home.net repository. - Don't allow 3rd party apps to use your location or disable location services - Unset your mobile number (as above) I do lurk around every couple of days, so if you have any queries feel free to hit me up. 0th3lo
Oth3lo, welcome to TA! Very, very well said- your above post and the letter to Patrick quoted above. Agree completely w everything you said. Consent, for myself also, is the crux of the matter here any way you look at it. I was going to mention privaCy app on Cydia but u beat me to it for what it's worth, it should be said that pinchmedia actually contacted Saurik to get the ball rolling on privaCy. After that, saurik and BB contacted 3 other similar companies to incorporate into the app- it's not only pinchmedia. They all cooperated willingly and shared technical expertise to assist in implementation.
Thanks Outkast1, Been a long time lurker, though I do read http://toucharcade.com/ quite regularly to see what apps are new & interesting. PrivaCy indeed was a joint venture and allot of hard work was put in by all parties, however also just to add only after enough pressure was put on the metric providers by the community
