Responding to concerns over the integrity of the iPhone’s data reset methods, Apple has taken the extra step and built a more secure data wipe function into the next version of the handset’s software …
According to Apple Insider, the ability to fully and securely wipe all personal data (all data full stop) from the iPhone is to be added in the 2.0 software. About time. This has been one of the big misses on the iPhone up to now, and has left a lot of people frustrated when it comes time to sell their V1 iPhone, as the only methods available with the current firmware require jailbreak and a fair bit of manual labor.
The Apple Insider post reports that people familiar with the 2.0 betas are saying the 2.0 release will use "a more foolproof method" of erasing all personal data and settings, and they’ve got some details on the way it’s done:
… the revised function will wipe data in similar fashion to the "Secure Empty Trash" function of Mac OS X, by which all data is deleted, unlinked, and then overwritten several times to make it irretrievable by even the savviest of recovery tools.
As such, the new function will take considerably longer to complete — about an hour for a typical 8GB iPhone. A progress bar appears during the process. During the data wipe, users should connect their iPhone to its power adapter as the process is believed to be CPU intensive.
If this is all accurate, this is a very good addition to the iPhone. This is what I’d certainly want if I was going to sell my V1 iPhone (still hoping the wife will decide she’d like to take it on). I have no problem with the process taking an hour – that’s still much less hassle than the existing jailbreak processes that have been talked about up to now.
As shown in the screencap at the top of this post, the secure wipe will be done via the Settings > General > Erase All Contents and Settings command from within the Settings app.
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