iPhone deemed a threat to China's security

China’s National TV went on a strange, bold accusation on Friday, declaring the iPhone is a threat to China’s national security. It established

itself by stating the iPhone’s “Frequent Location” option enables Apple to gather information concerning the places Chinese visit the most, and use it against China.

Apple, which doesn’t dominate the Chinese market with its iPhone (6.0%), still has a significant part of the higher-end handsets market share. It is yet unclear whether this will have any affect to Apple’s activity in China. All that said, it is possible to turn off the option in the settings menu.

This comes at a fragile state, when the US takes fire from most of the world concerning its alleged spying habits, and it seems Apple is taking the fire from the Chinese. Whether or not this accusations are base-less or have some truth in them, we’ll need to await developments. Apple’s statement was, “Your iPhone will keep track of places you have recently been, as well as how often and when you visited them, in order to learn places that are significant to you. This data is kept solely on your device and won’t be sent to Apple without your consent. It will be used to provide you with personalized services, such as predictive traffic routing.”

iPhone 5s