A wave of paranoia has been unleashed by discoveries that your iPhone is tracking your every move (Guardian), prompting some to assume Apple is sending the data to the mothership, in order to have you beaten to death if you don’t look at enough iAds every month. MAN, THOSE APPLE GUYS ARE EVIL.

But wait!

Alex Levinson reports some shocking discoveries:

  • Apple is not collecting the data;
  • The location data is used by software such as Maps and Camera, in order to operate;
  • The hidden file is neither new nor secret (it’s just moved);
  • The ‘discovery’ was in fact published in 2010.

But hang on… If this is all the case, then this is the media whipping up a bullshit frenzy about Apple, just because that’s more newsworthy than:

Location data still on Apple device, so location-oriented apps still work. Bloke writes app to pull data to desktop. World doesn’t explode. No-one really cares. Well, apart from editors who know they can fire up the link-bait machine. Oh, and people going ARGH, THEY KNOW WHERE I’VE BEEN while tweeting their geo-location data, checking into Foursquare and Gowalla and posting to Facebook that they’re “away from home, in a pub on the Thames, if you want to join me,” which of course has NO SECURITY IMPLICATIONS WHATSOEVER.

Oh.