Spying iPhone is no accident.

A recent Apple patent applicationreveals that the location-trackingdossiers accumulated in iPhones are to be used in apps from Apple and any number of other companies. Ronald Huang, an Apple senior engineering manager , filed patent application 12/553,554 last month,"Location histories for location aware devices," which explains how Apple can amass and use location data in the very ways Apple critics fear. The patent application, for example, envisions a searchable map plotting the owner's location history; tying location to financial transactions; transmitting location data over the internet to remote servers; and many other uses. Apple has been enmeshed in controversy since computer researchers disclosed last month that the iPhone stores indefinitely data about its whereabouts gleaned from cell phone towers and wifi access points. The data collection started with the release of iOS 4 last June. The iPhone puts the location data in an easily read file called "consolidated.db," which is apparently never pruned for old entries.