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Per request of the Egyptian government, Apple has disabled the GPS functionality of the iPhone 3G, according to a new report in The New York Times. There are few details regarding how it was disabled, but according to one Egyptian in-the-know, the government concern stems from possible anti-military/anti-Egyptian applications. It appears as if in the past, GPS has been used by non-state military individuals to acquire accurate latitude and longitude coordinates so that they could execute attacks on specific targets.

Apple began selling the second-generation of its popular mobile device in Egypt on August 22 of this year through both Orange and Vodafone. Apparently, the iPhone has experienced a good deal of popularity there, with one of the NYTimes' sources claiming that "everyone knows the iPhone."

The irony in the situation is that the source had bought an "American iPhone 3G" well before the Egyptian launch, which, of course, has fully-functional GPS. In the end, the article speculates that if Apple is willing to make this concession for the Egyptian market, what concessions is the company willing to make to get into the much larger Chinese cell phone market? Does it surprise you that Apple made this change unbeknownst to customers and, specifically, for the Egyptian government?

[Via arstechnica]