“Although Apple was silent for several days after researchers raised issues about location information being stored on the iPhone, that wasn’t because it was ignoring the issue,” Ina Fried reports for AllThingsD.
“Apple CEO Steve Jobs told Mobilized that the company wanted to figure out exactly what was and wasn’t happening, and then figure out the best way to explain a complex set of issues to its customers,” Fried reports. “‘We’re an engineering-driven company,’ Jobs said in a telephone interview Wednesday. ‘When people accuse us of things, the first thing we want to do is find out the truth. That took a certain amount of time to track all of these things down. And the accusations were coming day by day. By the time we had figured this all out, it took a few days. Then writing it up and trying to make it intelligible when this is a very high-tech topic took a few days. And here we are less than a week later.'”
“During the phone interview, Jobs and senior vice presidents Phil Schiller and Scott Forstall talked about what information the iPhone is and isn’t collecting, some lessons learned and the need for the industry to do a better job of explaining things to customers,” Fried reports. “Jobs declined to say whether he thought Google or others needed to do a better job on privacy issues, but did note that Apple’s approach is different. ‘Some of them don’t do what we do,’ Jobs said. ‘That’s for sure.'”
Fried reports, “Jobs said that the company is leading the way when it comes to privacy and said Apple looks forward to testifying before any congressional inquiries on such issues. During the talk, the execs also touched briefly on the release of the long-delayed white iPhone. Also, Jobs declined to comment on when he might return full time to Apple.”
A transcript of the interview is in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “James W.” for the heads up.]