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Most original use of iPhone tracking data

Do you recall the ruckus a couple months ago over Apple collecting location data? Someone has taken those lemons and made lemonade.

James Bridle extracted the location data from his iPhone and turned it into a book of maps. You can buy it on Lulu for £100.

The book is 202 pages long, and there’s a separate map page for each day. The maps are based on 35,801 coordinates stored his phone between June 2010 and April 2011 (when learned about the tracking). The locations were plotted on OpenStreetMap, one map for each day, together with a brief note where he wanted to tie it to a real event.

When you think about what he’s done, it’s quite fascinating.

He’s taken digital data that was created by spying on him and he’s converted it to an analog form. He’s also selling the data that Apple took for free – data that was recorded surreptitiously by one party, and now anyone can have it.

I’m still exploring the idea, and I bet there are even more layers. Neat.

via Book Two

P.S. There are more photos on Flickr.

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Comments


P A Wilson June 26, 2011 um 1:25 pm

Apple has joined Google in my Creepy but Cool list of things.


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