Collected: Apple, iPhone, Dell, post-PC, data and you

By Jonny Evans

Some still deny Apple [AAPL] CEO, Steve Jobs and his vision of an age of computing after the PC, but this number doesn't include Dell boss, Michael Dell, who "doesn't want to talk about PCs anymore," according to the Wall Street Journal. That's a shame as there's almost no touchscreens left for Dell to use in its own tablets, Apple got them all. And regulators everywhere are getting the idea that location-based data protection may be needed after all.

[ABOVE: Jobs on privacy in 2010]

Apple "has already booked up almost all available touchscreen capacity," according to Digitimes. This gives Apple a big advantage as others look to the post-PC age.

Dell didn't see it

These others include Michael Dell, he who once told Jobs to sell Apple and give company investors back their money, he who now admits that he didn't see the "rapid rise of the tablet" coming.

Dell's famous link with Microsoft seems threatened, with Dell predicting in future we'll see, "Enormous numbers of Android tablets with Dell certainly playing a role in that as well." The make-to-order PC chief expects Android tablets to take the lead eventually, repeating the pattern everyone keeps saying is happening within the smartphone market.

It isn't just Dell who is embracing the tablet category. Acer has slashed production of low-cost netbooks in favor of new tablets of its own, and while it has had to run an adroit race to source the components it needs, it remains on course to follow Apple into the 'Post PC age'.

[This story is from Computerworld's Apple Holic blog. Follow on Twitter or subscribe via RSS to make sure you don't miss a beat.]

This era isn't just about the computer, it is also about the information, and access to that information. Charlotte, North Carolina Fox affiliate WCCB-TV recently reported on Apple's new data center.

Doing it with data

"The town of Maiden could be ground zero for what one analyst calls Apple's assault on the living room," the reporter said. This will be the revolutionizing of TV, perhaps, and could well be more.

More important than data is people's use of that data. That's where the furor over Apple's secretive grabbing of people's location information within iOS 4 is so upsetting.

MacRumors reports an email from Apple boss, Steve Jobs, in which he says Android phones also collect data, that Apple does not "track anyone", and adds, "The info circulating around is false."

At issue: Since the release of iOS 4, your iPhone gathers and time-stamps latitude and longitude coordinates of where it is at any time. The data collected can be extracted from an iPhone or a stolen computer, giving a good picture of a user's movements. There's even software available which will let you interrogate that data.

The Guardian informs us that Android devices also gather this data, prompting some European governments to announce investigations into whether either company is breaking privacy laws. The information is most likely collected to support services such as Mapping and location tracking features such as 'Find my iPhone'.

Apple and Google gather this information in order to assemble a map of the locations and identities of cellphone towers and Wi-Fi networks in order to improve ad targeting.

Revelation at Apple's secret data-mining has led to questions from US Senators and investigations on the part of regulators in Korea and Germany.

I'm hearing whispers from UK sources which suggest the case has raised some eyebrows here. Not least as data protection forces try to ascertain if the information is ever shared internationally without a user's knowledge, or if it is ever sold or shared to other parties without a user's knowledge.

These matters are important. That's because in the post-PC age, data will be the biggest currency: as a user you'll want access to all your data everywhere; while as a vendor you'll want access to as much user data as you can get.

Deciding data rights

Some will feel that convenience outweighs privacy, while privacy advocates will complain that convenience is but a pretty pill surrounding an unwarranted attempt to secure an unprecedented quantity of data in order to further corporate interests.

"These aren't smartphones; they are spy phones," said John M. Simpson. "Consumers must have the right to control whether their data is gathered and how it is used."

The Federal Trade Commission's report, "Protecting Consumer Privacy in an Era of Rapid Change," proposed a Do Not Track mechanism last December.

This is why big tech firms are rushing to gather as much accumulated location-based data now, before relatively slow-moving governments succeed in putting privacy rules in place designed to stop them.

"We've always had a very different view of privacy than some of our colleagues in the Valley. We take privacy extremely seriously. As an example, we worry a lot about location in phones. And we worry that some 14-year-old is going to get stalked and something terrible is going to happen because of our phone," said Jobs at All Things Digital in 2010 in the video above.

What's changed, Steve?

Furthur...(**)

It has to be something to do with money. After all, this is a high stakes game. The value of location-based advertising is expected to reach $8.3 billion by 2014.

As computing moves from the desktop paradigm into the connected device ecosystem the industry is evolving toward today, the value of more conventional online ads will shrink, even as that of location-based ads increases.

Meanwhile, we need to decide what is fair use with data, how we wish to keep data private, and what we will willingly share in exchange for a connected consumerist experience.And Michael Dell needs to find a touchscreen supplier...

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