It’s actually not at all obvious how a local list of locations used to power suggestions in maps or Siri, is in any way a compromise of privacy or technically bad.
The only thing that made it sound bad were people saying things like “Apple stores your location history”, knowing that it would create the false impression that Apple was uploading location data to their servers.
This situation is similar in that there are people posting misleading inuendo about Apple having some hidden agenda, but the difference is that there do seem like real design problems with the mechanism this time.
Every iOS device connects to Apple's push service and stays connected. The client certificate it uses is tied to the serial number of the device itself, when it registers for the push service.
Apple sees the client IP of the push connection, naturally.
Therefore, based on IP geolocation, Apple really does have coarse location history for every single iOS device by serial number.
Apple is indeed storing your (coarse) location history.
> Therefore, based on IP geolocation, Apple really does have coarse location history for every single iOS device by serial number.
This conflates technical possibility with an implemented system which stores that data and the insinuation that this is used for purposes other than what the user enabled. Do you have an evidence that Apple stores this data and uses it in violation of their privacy policy? You're apparently in Europe so you should be able to file a GDPR request to see exactly what they're storing.
Everything I described is implemented today, and is required for APNS to work. Whether Apple does or does not mine the data in some way that you personally find offensive is not relevant; the fact is that they are presently logging IPs for APNS connections, which have unique identifiers that are related directly to hardware serial numbers in their database. Because IPs generally equal location, they are in possession of location history for each iOS device serial number.
I'm not sure why these (plainly factual) statements are controversial.
There’s no question that they need connections to operate the service but they do not need to retain that information, however, and while you have repeatedly asserted that they do, you have been unable to support that claim. This would be covered by privacy laws in many places so it should be easy to point to their privacy disclosures or the result of an inquiry showing that they do in fact retain connection logs for more than a short period of time.
It stands to reason that user of the service who has agreed to the TOS that governs APNS and App Store sending unique device hardware serial numbers to Apple has also (legally) consented to IP address collection. IP addresses are less unique identifiers than globally unique device serials, so I assume Apple has already secured what passes for "consent" under the relevant privacy laws.
Again, nobody is questioning their access to that information. Where you typically go wrong is by asserting without evidence that they are performing additional activities without disclosing that. Surely you understand that having IPs be visible does not automatically mean retaining those records, much building a searchable database?
The only thing that made it sound bad were people saying things like “Apple stores your location history”, knowing that it would create the false impression that Apple was uploading location data to their servers.
This situation is similar in that there are people posting misleading inuendo about Apple having some hidden agenda, but the difference is that there do seem like real design problems with the mechanism this time.