That would be the perfect gesture if they had ACCIDENTALLY collected the data and never realized it was happening.

But this "mistake" was not some accident or technical glitch, and just because they chose the right PR move after they got busted, that doesn't make them a company I can trust.

Doesnt apple screen apps?

Apple needs to add more bricks to that wall garden. Maybe a dome?

If they really want us to trust them, shouldn't they make this an opt-IN service, rather than opt-out? I shouldn't have to hunt for a setting inside the app to turn something like this off, it should explicitly ask me to turn it on.

It was probably in their EULA

Doesn't matter. Apple doesn't allow it at all.

Well Apple screwed up. They should have denied the app.

More bricks on the walled garden

Nearly sounds like a clever marketing trick this whole thing.

Exactly. This exposes a enormous problem with Apple's procedures if an application can get approved while doing something like this.

From what little I have seen on this incident, Apple seems to be getting a pass in the coverage and I don't understand why. Has any person/site covering this asked Apple about what went wrong and what are they planning to do to prevent something like this in the future?

I heard an iOS developer talking about how easy it is to get bad behavior around Apple's approval process. He said that all he has to do is have the app check for a date past the time Apple would have approved the app. Once that date arises, the app would then go out to his web site and get instructions that would change its behavior. The developer indicated he is already using this technique to collect data that Apple wouldn't normally allow.

Walled garden indeed.

-kpluck

next cleaver idea. Steal peoples apple I'd and use it to buy your app

Pwned by your spellchecker.

Damn.