Apple Thursday issued a statement that it stopped supporting controversial Carrier IQ software that is intended to collect smartphone performance data for carriers, but allegedly collects detailed personal information.

Apple had included the client software from Carrier IQ in earlier version of its iOS firmware for devices such as iPhones and iPads. But Apple dropped the code from iOS 5, the most recent version, according to the statement. Apple also said it has not collected any personal information.

According to Apple, "We stopped supporting Carrier IQ with iOS 5 in most of our products and will remove it completely in a future software update. With any diagnostic data sent to Apple, customers must actively opt-in to share this information, and if they do, the data is sent in an anonymous and encrypted form and does not include any personal information. We never recorded keystrokes, messages or any other personal information for diagnostic data and have no plans to ever do so."

Meanwhile, other mobile carriers have acknowledged their use or knowledge of this Carier IQ software.

[John Cox covers wireless networking and mobile computing for Network World. Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnwcoxnwwEmail: john_cox@nww.comBlog RSS feed: http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/2989/feed]

This story, "Apple ended Carrier IQ support with iOS 5" was originally published by Network World .