Tom Insam

Bad geotagged EXIF data off the iPhone

The iPhone camera geotags photos you take using it. This is a nice feature, and I like it. But if you use iPhoto to get your pictures off the camera, it breaks them.

This file was pulled using Image Capture

$ md5 Desktop/IMG_0115.JPG
MD5 (Desktop/IMG_0115.JPG) = db9551d666e312dad10b01607b758bc1

$ exif Desktop/IMG_0115.JPG
EXIF tags in 'Desktop/IMG_0115.JPG' ('Motorola' byte order):
--------------------+----------------------------------------------------------
Tag                 |Value
--------------------+----------------------------------------------------------
Manufacturer        |Apple
Model               |iPhone
Orientation         |right - top
x-Resolution        |72.00
y-Resolution        |72.00
Resolution Unit     |Inch
Date and Time       |2008:07:14 09:39:31
Compression         |JPEG compression
Orientation         |right - top
x-Resolution        |72.00
y-Resolution        |72.00
Resolution Unit     |Inch
FNumber             |f/2.8
Date and Time (origi|2008:07:14 09:39:31
Date and Time (digit|2008:07:14 09:39:31
Color Space         |Uncalibrated
PixelXDimension     |1600
PixelYDimension     |1200
Gamma               |2.20
North or South Latit|N
Latitude            |51.00, 31.49, 0.00
East or West Longitu|W
Longitude           |0.00, 5.25, 0.00
--------------------+----------------------------------------------------------
EXIF data contains a thumbnail (4879 bytes).

And this file is the EXACT SAME PICTURE pulled using iPhoto

$ md5 /Users/tomi/Pictures/iPhoto/Modified/2008/14 Jul 2008/IMG_0115.JPG
MD5 (/Users/tomi/Pictures/iPhoto/Modified/2008/14 Jul 2008/IMG_0115.JPG) = 571f8966a47ac583026090b63d7cde2a

$ exif /Users/tomi/Pictures/iPhoto/Modified/2008/14 Jul 2008/IMG_0115.JPG
EXIF tags in '/Users/tomi/Pictures/iPhoto/Modified/2008/14 Jul 2008/IMG_0115.JPG' ('Motorola' byte order):
--------------------+----------------------------------------------------------
Tag                 |Value
--------------------+----------------------------------------------------------
Manufacturer        |Apple
Model               |iPhone
Orientation         |top - left
x-Resolution        |72.00
y-Resolution        |72.00
Resolution Unit     |Inch
Software            |QuickTime 7.5
Date and Time       |2008:07:14 09:40:28
YCbCr Positioning   |centered
Compression         |JPEG compression
x-Resolution        |72.00
y-Resolution        |72.00
Resolution Unit     |Inch
YCbCr Positioning   |centered
FNumber             |f/2.8
Exif Version        |Exif Version 2.2
Date and Time (origi|2008:07:14 09:39:31
Date and Time (digit|2008:07:14 09:39:31
Color Space         |Uncalibrated
Latitude            |51.00, 31.49, 0.00
Longitude           |0.00, 5.25, 0.00
--------------------+----------------------------------------------------------
EXIF data contains a thumbnail (2670 bytes).