Something that I tripped over today is something called Frequent Locations. To find it, go to Settings -> Privacy -> Location Services -> System Services. This is what you will see:
From what I can tell, it keeps track of places you’ve been. In my case, it’s already identified my home location as well as a few locations I’ve visited since I’ve updated to iOS 7 yesterday. I should also note that I have not used Maps to do navigation since I’ve updated, so it’s figuring this out on the fly. Not only that, there is an option called Improve Maps which sends this info to Apple to help it to improve Maps. And it’s on by default which bothers me a bit. But at least if you click Learn More, you’ll clearly see what they’re collecting and how it’s stored.
Now I should point out the following just to balance this a bit:
Mapping apps like Google Maps do some version of this. Though they may not do this by default. It may be worth your while to check to see what your mapping app does and doesn’t do.
This is likely an extension of the location gathering opt-in option the iPhone has had for years. Although it’s kind of buried and I likely would not have noticed it if I had not been just figuring out what iOS 7 could do. I think it’s safe to assume that the casual user would not find this.
Many Android phones do this sort of thing as well. This isn’t something that is unique to Apple.
So, here’s the burning question: Are you bothered by this or is this much ado about nothing? Please cast your vote below:
And for the record, I’ve turned this off on my iPhone 5. It will likely save me some battery life by doing so. I do not think that there’s anything sinister going on here. But if you ask me, It might be handy for Apple to address this so that this doesn’t get blown way out of proportion.
This entry was posted on September 19, 2013 at 2:20 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags Apple, iOS. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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What Is This Frequent Locations Thing in iOS 7?
Something that I tripped over today is something called Frequent Locations. To find it, go to Settings -> Privacy -> Location Services -> System Services. This is what you will see:
From what I can tell, it keeps track of places you’ve been. In my case, it’s already identified my home location as well as a few locations I’ve visited since I’ve updated to iOS 7 yesterday. I should also note that I have not used Maps to do navigation since I’ve updated, so it’s figuring this out on the fly. Not only that, there is an option called Improve Maps which sends this info to Apple to help it to improve Maps. And it’s on by default which bothers me a bit. But at least if you click Learn More, you’ll clearly see what they’re collecting and how it’s stored.
Now I should point out the following just to balance this a bit:
So, here’s the burning question: Are you bothered by this or is this much ado about nothing? Please cast your vote below:
And for the record, I’ve turned this off on my iPhone 5. It will likely save me some battery life by doing so. I do not think that there’s anything sinister going on here. But if you ask me, It might be handy for Apple to address this so that this doesn’t get blown way out of proportion.
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This entry was posted on September 19, 2013 at 2:20 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags Apple, iOS. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.