Apple iPhone and its 12 month memory

This story is of interest re the memory capacity of the iPhone, and the fact that no matter what is deleted it can be retrieved for 12 months.

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28 July 2010
Today in Sydney rape charges were dropped after deleted messages were recovered from an iPhone

Deleted but decoded text messages undermined a schoolgirl's claims against a northern beaches businessman.

A man's business and reputation are tainted, a young woman's HSC and mental health are in tatters and prosecutors have been ordered to pay more than $30,000 in legal costs for a bungled rape investigation on Sydney's northern beaches.

But it could have been worse still, if not for the trove of secrets stored in one of the world's most popular mobile phones.

In what may be the first time an iPhone's elephantine memory has saved someone accused of a serious crime, deleted data retrieved by a leading surveillance expert appears to have led to the dropping of five rape charges against a Sydney man.

Apple has sold more than 50 million iPhones since 2007 but few users know how much information they collect. The keyboard logging cache means an expert can retrieve anything typed on it for up to 12 months. Its internal mapping and ''geotags'' attached to photos indicate where a user has been.

An iPhone has up to 32 gigabytes of data that can be ''imaged'' or decoded with the right equipment, even if it has been deleted.

Full story:
Rape charges dropped after deleted messages recovered from iPhone