[justsee]

The point to be made here is that Apple's provided almost universal, historical snooping capabilities without any individual actors having to get James Bond on the situation. Every iOS device has the potential to reveal someone made a trip to a police station, or spent a lot of time in a suburb that doesn't match with a particular story.

The fact that people of sufficient technical capability and motivation can always install traffic snoopers with greater resolution / utility doesn't change any of the above?

I suppose this situation is a little like the Firesheep release. Things could already be exploited, but by reducing the effort and skill required it significantly changed the security / privacy situation.

Your final point is a bit of a false dilemma, because Apple can just fix the issue to remove that particular security concern. Of course the device is still tracked by networks, but as discussed the barrier to access that information is probably high enough for many people.

[allwein]

>Every iOS device has the potential to reveal someone made a trip to a police station, or spent a lot of time in a suburb that doesn't match with a particular story.

Sure, it has the potential. But only if the idiot was dumb enough to check into jail from Foursquare (or otherwise use a Location Service).