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My favorite thing about these features is the number of apps that it’s reminded me to uninstall completely from my devices. The number of apps that I initially

My favorite thing about these features is the number of apps that it’s reminded me to uninstall completely from my devices. The number of apps that I initially installed months ago that didn’t have any of this that suddenly developed tracking notifications is staggering. I never would have known either since the updates happen silently in the background. Great features.

ChrisMarshallNY 7y ago
This. Yeah, I have a number of apps I installed for one-time operations (a number of obscure dev apps come to mind), and I find out that they are still hanging around, like my drunken Uncle Bob, hovering around the keg.
misiti3780 7y ago
where are you seeing the notifications ? I installed the update and just clicked "use location only while using app" for everything
- afturner 7y ago
  They just magically start appearing after a while
  - 8fingerlouie 7y ago
    And once they start they don't stop again, which is also kinda annoying. I wish there was some way to permanently allow it, and not be bugged by the alerts again. Something the app cannot set by itself, but i can set. I have some apps, i.e. Unifi Protect, that requires access to background location to send activity alerts when nobody is home, and i frequently get alerts that this app has used my location in the background, and despite selecting "allow always" it will pop up again in a couple of weeks. To further add insult to injury, i appear to have "trained" my wife so well that she defaults to selecting "deny" for apps she doesn't use, and "only when in use" to everything else, which then results in a flurry of motion alerts :)
    - jpalomaki 7y ago
      You get the popups until you accidentally block the app. Since the probability for blocking accidentally is greater than zero, over time all such apps get blocked. This might hurt for example Tile. I think their “network effect” is somewhat depending on this kind of background location tracking.
    - Nemo157 7y ago
      I have a feeling that's a bug. I have an app that I want to have background location and was asked twice soon after upgrading to iOS 13, then iOS was silent for about a month, then started popping up a prompt for it 2 or 3 times a day for half a week. After restarting it stopped popping up again, so it seems likely that something was broken about saving whether it had prompted for that app.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- lilyball 7y ago
  I don't know if you'll get them at all for apps where you said "only while using". They're intended for apps that use your location in the background. The OS just prompts you at some point to make sure you want to keep giving the app access to your location while in the background.
- dpkonofa 7y ago
  They'll usually pop up unexpectedly and say something like "Data Leaking App has used your location while running in the background 3 times in the last 24 hours. Do you want to continue allowing this?" and it'll give me a prompt to disable location services for that app completely, allow while the app is in the background, while it's in focus, or allow always. Depending on what permissions the app actually needs, the prompt is slightly different each time. It's a new feature due to the more fine-grained permissions that are allowed now on iOS. It prevents apps that you may have previously allowed location access to (when it was just binary) from adding all these new "features" to use your location in ways that weren't disclosed that way initially.
  - misiti3780 7y ago
    interesting - i have not seen that yet, but maybe i dont have apps doing that. i dont have uber on my phone but I have lyft, Im surprised I have not seen it from them.
jredwards 7y ago
I love this feature. I regularly go through and turn off location tracking on almost all of my apps (or at least turn them to 'while using'). But sometimes I'll have to turn them back to permanent for a specific reason (e.g. sharing my location with someone while I'm coordinating with them). This feature reminds me to turn it back off. But I also potentially see the need for a feature which allows always-on access for a limited period of time.

ChrisMarshallNY 7y ago

This. Yeah, I have a number of apps I installed for one-time operations (a number of obscure dev apps come to mind), and I find out that they are still hanging around, like my drunken Uncle Bob, hovering around the keg.

misiti3780 7y ago

where are you seeing the notifications ? I installed the update and just clicked "use location only while using app" for everything

afturner 7y ago
They just magically start appearing after a while
- 8fingerlouie 7y ago
  And once they start they don't stop again, which is also kinda annoying. I wish there was some way to permanently allow it, and not be bugged by the alerts again. Something the app cannot set by itself, but i can set. I have some apps, i.e. Unifi Protect, that requires access to background location to send activity alerts when nobody is home, and i frequently get alerts that this app has used my location in the background, and despite selecting "allow always" it will pop up again in a couple of weeks. To further add insult to injury, i appear to have "trained" my wife so well that she defaults to selecting "deny" for apps she doesn't use, and "only when in use" to everything else, which then results in a flurry of motion alerts :)
  - jpalomaki 7y ago
    You get the popups until you accidentally block the app. Since the probability for blocking accidentally is greater than zero, over time all such apps get blocked. This might hurt for example Tile. I think their “network effect” is somewhat depending on this kind of background location tracking.
  - Nemo157 7y ago
    I have a feeling that's a bug. I have an app that I want to have background location and was asked twice soon after upgrading to iOS 13, then iOS was silent for about a month, then started popping up a prompt for it 2 or 3 times a day for half a week. After restarting it stopped popping up again, so it seems likely that something was broken about saving whether it had prompted for that app.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
lilyball 7y ago
I don't know if you'll get them at all for apps where you said "only while using". They're intended for apps that use your location in the background. The OS just prompts you at some point to make sure you want to keep giving the app access to your location while in the background.
dpkonofa 7y ago
They'll usually pop up unexpectedly and say something like "Data Leaking App has used your location while running in the background 3 times in the last 24 hours. Do you want to continue allowing this?" and it'll give me a prompt to disable location services for that app completely, allow while the app is in the background, while it's in focus, or allow always. Depending on what permissions the app actually needs, the prompt is slightly different each time. It's a new feature due to the more fine-grained permissions that are allowed now on iOS. It prevents apps that you may have previously allowed location access to (when it was just binary) from adding all these new "features" to use your location in ways that weren't disclosed that way initially.
- misiti3780 7y ago
  interesting - i have not seen that yet, but maybe i dont have apps doing that. i dont have uber on my phone but I have lyft, Im surprised I have not seen it from them.

jredwards 7y ago

I love this feature. I regularly go through and turn off location tracking on almost all of my apps (or at least turn them to 'while using'). But sometimes I'll have to turn them back to permanent for a specific reason (e.g. sharing my location with someone while I'm coordinating with them). This feature reminds me to turn it back off. But I also potentially see the need for a feature which allows always-on access for a limited period of time.