BAK2u CEO Paddy Tan has confirmed that a lite version of PhoneBAK for iPhone has been sent to Apple for approval. The original PhoneBAK for iPhone app, which was not approved by Apple, was designed to thwart iPhone theft. The app was able to detect the insertion of a new SIM card, and would secretly send out an sms and an email to a predetermined number and email address respectively. The email would also contain the location of the iPhone to help people track their lost or stolen phones.
Paddy confirmed that the original version of the app did go around the iPhone's documented APIs in order to identify the SIM card used in the iPhone (the SDK currently does not offer any way to do this). In addition, the sending out of a secret SMS or email would require the running of a background application, which is strictly forbidden by the SDK. Apple did not say why the original app was not approved (contrary to what was reported previously), but these are two likely reasons the app might have been given the thumbs down.
While Paddy would not say how the lite version is different from the original one, presumably it does not use undocumented calls nor does it run in the background.
(Thanks to reader Gerard for flagging the original piece that led to this, hopefully clearer, story.)
2 comments:
My new iPhone 3GS which was bought on 26aug09 got stolen on 24oct09. I think this application should be included in the iPhone instead of needed to be downloaded.
how i wish i can now detect where my iphone is located, and who is the person using it now!
It's terrible when that happens. If you replace your iPhone, think about getting a MobileMe account that will a) help you track your iPhone and b) allow you to delete your data remotely so people can't access it...
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