Saturday, May 20, 2017

False Alarm - Poor Location Tracking

One of the benefits of having Apple accounts (via Apple ID) linked to all of our Apple devices (our family has 2 iMacs, a MacBook Pro, an Apple TV, 2 iPads, and 2 iPhones) is that we can be notified when and where someone is using our Apple ID. Well, hopefully that someone will the the rightful owner of the account, but if not, then you are given the option to disallow the login, change your password, and even force a signout from all linked devices.

Earlier tonight, I was using my Apple TV. Shortly thereafter, I saw the following prompt on my iMac:


I live in Los Angeles, and Tustin is approximately 50 miles from where I live. What would you have done? I thought that since I had just recently used my Apple TV, it could have been me (although I was not prompted to sign in to my Apple TV). However, it felt to me that location tracking via wifi should be accurate enough to at least pinpoint location to the correct city, and 50 miles seemed like too much of a margin of error to grant to location tracking. So to err on the side of caution, I clicked the "Don't Allow" button, changed my password, and forced all devices to sign out of my Apple ID.

When using my iPhone, I was asked to re-enter my Apple ID password since I had unceremoniously booted myself out moments before. Upon signing in, I received the same message on my iMac that my Apple ID was being used to sign in to a device near Tustin (I was still at home in Los Angeles). So on the bright side, I am pretty sure that my Apple ID had not been compromised. But on the other hand, come on Apple (I know you read my blog but won't admit it), you can do better with your location tracking–can you at least locate the device to the correct city? That would be nice, thank you.

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