Jobs Says Apple Made Mistakes With iPhone Data

“We haven’t been tracking anybody,” Mr. Jobs said in an interview on Wednesday. “Never have. Never will.”

Mr. Jobs said that Apple would fix the mistakes in a free software update that it would release in the next few weeks.

Mr. Jobs, who is currently on medical leave, addressed the issue along with two Apple executives — Philip W. Schiller, the senior vice president of worldwide product marketing, and Scott Forstall, the senior vice president of iPhone software. A week ago, two researchers reported that they had discovered a file in Apple’s devices containing what appeared to be data of the locations visited by users over the previous 12 months. The discovery raised fears that Apple was tracking its users and prompted investigations by various European governments and demands for explanations from United States lawmakers.

Earlier on Wednesday, Apple posted a statement on its Web site explaining how its system used the file to pinpoint a phone’s location.

Mr. Jobs defended the timing of Apple’s response to the controversy, saying that “rather than run to the P.R. department,” it set out to determine exactly what happened.

“The first thing we always do when a problem is brought to us is we try to isolate it and find out if it is real,” he said. “It took us about a week to do an investigation and write a response, which is fairly quick for something this technically complicated.”

He added, “Scott and Phil and myself were all involved in writing the response because we think it is that important.”