For a while I’ve been trying to find a device that will let me track myself wherever I go to map out my routes. Then when I got an iPhone I figured there’d be an app for that. Google Latitude came close, but no cigar. But I’ve found a great one!

Turns out, my iPhone tracks what cell towers I’m connected to and stores that data on the phone for a year. Well that’s not going to give you GPS-quality coordinates, but it’s certainly enough for me to show a trip I took and map things out roughly. There’s even an app for that (Mac only for now). Here’s where I’ve been in the last year.

There’s apparently a similar cell tower log file on Android-based phones too. This information has apparently been known for a while, but was just brought up and publicized recently as a security or privacy risk. But that risk is pretty low, considering that someone would have to already have your phone or computer to get the information. And if the data helps you do something positive, then it’s a pretty cool feature. I’d love to see Apple build out a service or piece of software that would accentuate this!