It's great tool for mass-surveillance. Since Apple has a database of all the apps the user has run on their device (but no worries, Google has the same).
For your security ;)
replies(2):
It’s not really that great for mass-surveillance. It “phone’s home” only on first run. And it doesn’t look like it sends data about your identity, device or location. They can have your IP address but another mechanism would be needed to relate that to you. (I doubt they are logging the IP address anyway. The only purpose would be to surveil you, but if they wanted to do that they would surely use a more capable mechanism . That makes keeping the IP addresses a burden and risk.)
Do we know that? The cache may well have an expiration date. Does the cache stay after an OS upgrade? I suspect further research will discover it's not just 'first time'.
>They can have your IP address but another mechanism would be needed to relate that to you.... if they wanted to do that they would surely use a more capable mechanism.
The app profile would already tell a great deal. Once enough of these 'non-capable' surveillance mechanisms add up, you end up with a very capable surveillance mechanism.