Why Would Apple Want to Remotely Access Your iPhone?

As usual Apple has been patent happy. Just as usual is the breakdown of what sometimes may be considered by outsiders as minimal or trivial. This isn’t one of those times.

If you’re the paranoid type, you just might want to check your peep-hole twice tonight. Mac Life has the entry and it reads:

A method for identifying an unauthorized user of an electronic device, the method comprising: determining that a current user of the electronic device is an unauthorized user; gathering information related to the unauthorized user’s operation of the electronic device in response to determining, wherein the unauthorized user’s operation comprises operations not related to the authentication; and transmitting an alert notification to a responsible party in response to gathering.

The fun-to-follow conspiracy side of me takes words like “unauthorized user” and replaces it with you and me. However how could I be unauthorized on a device I honestly own? Unless I modified my iPhone in a way that Apple doesn’t necessarily prefer. See where this is headed yet?

Since Uncle Sam has given us the legal go-ahead to jailbreak, perhaps Apple is stepping up the their game when it comes to scrutinizing those who violate their wishes. There has been debate on if there is any internal indicator on your iPhone after you jailbreak that Apple could identify if you brought it to a Genius Bar appointment for instance. As it stands, just restoring as new on iTunes (normally) gets your phone back to square 1 if anything goes array. Apple’s new patent could put a stick in these spokes.

Just when my Big Brother theory starts to get fired up I notice that Ars Technica reports a much more useful and reasonable use of the Apple patent. Imagine the capabilities of remote access and wipe if they were implemented to the already handy Find my iPhone application. What if voice and fingerprint inconsistencies lead to your device being pegged as stolen, and Apple could then remotely wipe and disable your thieved device?

What do you think, iDB readers? Will Apple use its (possibly) new patent power for good, or evil, or both? Do you see this being implemented in cracking down on jailbreaking, or just more security technology from our favorite fruit company? Express yourself in our yet to be patented comment section.