iPhone 5S Creepily Works When Dead

The iPhone 5S is supposed to be one of the most advanced smartphones ever, but if what CBS News is reporting is true, then it is not only advanced — it’s creepily advanced. A Reddit user named Arman Amin recently posted on the site that he had an interesting experience after his iPhone 5s died while on a trip to Spain.

According to the Reddit post that Amin made under the username of Glarznak, his lightning cable broke and his iPhone 5s died not long after. Because Amin had another phone at his disposal, he decided to not buy a new charger for his iPhone 5s and instead used another phone. Apparently he kept his iPhone 5s with him as he walked from placed to place while on hist trip.

Upon returning to his home in Toronto, Canada, Amin used a new lightning connector and found upon recharging the battery in his iPhone 5s that the app Argus had actually been tracking his steps every day of his trip — even those days when the battery was completely dead.

Amin wrote on Reddit that he was both “incredibly impressed and slightly terrified.”

Upon closer examination, it would appear that the iPhone 5s includes a chip in it that allows for these sorts of things to happen. The iPhone 5S includes a M7 lower-powered motion processor to do things like track steps. Apparently, the processor doesn’t really need battery life to keep up with a user.

This discovery of the iPhone 5S’s capabilities has caused others to wonder if Apple is able to track them while their phones are turned off.

Because the M7 only processes the movements of the gyroscope within the iPhone 5S, there is no risk of Apple being able to track your movements while your phone is turned off. In fact, Apple clearly states on its website that the M7 is designed to “measure motion data from the accelerometer, gyroscope, and compass.”

Still, people are prone to go a little wild with iPhone 5s rumors, particularly when they think that the NSA might have some involvement, so there are some on blogs and others on Reddit who have speculated that movements are being tracked by Apple.

What do you think about he fact that the iPhone 5S is able to track your movements when the battery is dead? Is it a comfort to know your apps are still able to do their jobs or would you rather simply have your iPhone 5S be all the way dead when you think it is dead?

Image via Highlightpress.com