
The Hidden Job of the M7 processor in the iPhone 5s - jcvangent
http://blog.firmhouse.com/the-hidden-job-of-the-m7-processor-in-the-iphone-5s
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quarterto
The entire useful content of the article:

 _The application was populated with my movement data of the past week
instantly. Instead of needing to use the application for a week to get sense
if I like it, I could decide immediately._

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tenderLoins
Oh boy! Now I get to wonder if this information is implicitly available to an
alphabet agency without my direct consent or awareness.

I have to wonder, by what order of magnitude this improves the precision of "
_THEIR_ " geolocation data, when " _THEY_ " collect on persons of interest.

(they? they who? gee, who's they???)

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melling
No, it's not needed. The cell towers provide sufficient information about your
location. How long have you had a cell phone?

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girvo
Interestingly, when the article started with this:

 _" The M7 processor contains all the hardware for tracking purposes."_

I thought it was going to be a negative, but the end of the post was positive.
I'm unsure how I feel about a chip that seems to be dedicated to tracking all
that data from Day 1, what with all the surveillance talks lately...

But then, I remember that using a mobile phone is pretty inherently insecure
anyway; carriers know where you are at pretty much any point, text messages
are terribly easy to get for any LEO-type adversary, etc.

Still, the UX part of it is kind of neat, as are the benefits for battery life
-- I do like the idea of low-power chips to handle tasks so the main
application processor doesn't have to. I know a lot of phones actually have a
dedicated co-processor for the Radio (which is what the radio firmware blobs
run on), so it's not unprecedented.

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azurelogic
I thought this was going to be another Apple = Big Brother piece too. Having
read too many articles like that lately, I was surprised at the ending. The
post title on here feels kind of ominous...

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bjansn
Author here, I agree. Title could have been better for sure, it's in the end
more about the UX part and how Apple supports their developers delivering a
better experience to the iOS users.

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hakcermani
Is the M7 data also reset on a phone reset ? Would be good to know.

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bjansn
Probably, it stores the data on your phone somewhere. Probably is in your
back-up as well? This should be somewhere in the docs. Don't have the time to
look it up atm.

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tsunamifury
Apple openly highlights this to developers at the tech talks to encourage you
to integrate it.

I'm very curious what bioanalytics apple is collecting via the M7 though. Are
they testing to see how you use your device to better inform the creation of a
bioaugmentation device like the iwatch?

As someone who has tried to design some augmentation software, getting an
better informed persona about the user and transforming the UI to work based
on car, train, bike, running would be an awesome future step.

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bjansn
Yes! That's what got me thinking as well. Apple briefly mentioned 'iOS in your
car' when they announced iOS7 I believe. This will play a role. Tracking
movement will become part of using a device. Think of surfacing information or
starting background processes. Currently their Maps application switches view
modes already. When you drive and park your car it switches to 'walking'. It
would be great if there would be a way for developers to build in options and
ask the user to 'start this app when I start driving'.

This also accounts for Touch ID. Currently it's just for unlocking your phone.
And more people in a family could unlock a device without sharing a code. On a
usability level this also provides options; for example when I unlock my phone
with my left thumb, open e-mail instantly. It's might not be novel, perhaps
it's done before. But it sounds useful to me.

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rismay
I was extremely disappointed by the noise given by the M7. To make use of the
data it spits out, you need to apply filters to clean it up. There are better
out of the box solutions for programmers. For example,
[https://www.alohar.com/developer/](https://www.alohar.com/developer/). Also,
it is not as battery efficient as they promised. It is more battery efficient
than the 3rd party offerings. However, I ran iOS 7 on my iPhone 5 for months
and got better battery life running the same apps. Amazing since by that time
the battery on the iPhone 5 was 1 year old.

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statusgraph
Not applying filters is precisely the right thing to do; it gives developers
the most flexibility in interpreting the data. Filters by definition lose
data, and can only be chosen with a specific use case in mind.

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mturmon
True. Crudely speaking, some applications might be interested in high-
frequency jitter ("how bumpy is it here") and others might be interested in
low-frequency overall paths ("where in your neighborhood did you go").

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cheeaun
I think this was slightly mentioned in the Apple Special Event on September 10
[http://youtu.be/yBX-KpMoxYk?t=43m45s](http://youtu.be/yBX-KpMoxYk?t=43m45s)

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bjansn
Thanks for posting the link to the video. Just checked. Don't see them mention
the use of historical data when you first launch an app. Which was the case.
My first use experience on Nike+ Move was better because I can already seeing
it work based on a weeks data. Funny part was that they don't really
acknowledge the fact they import the data. Argus, another application which I
like for activity tracking, did the same.

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gesman
It also includes alert to your spouse in case of repeated up and down
movements detected outside of your primary residence :)

