An iOS 14 feature that has gone a bit under the radar is the Precise Location toggle for Location Services. This new toggle gives the user more control over which apps can access your current location, and on which granularity.
Before iOS 14, you could give an app access to your location while using the app, as always. However, if location access were allowed, the app would always get an exact coordinate. Many apps do not actually need such accurate location information, and iOS 14 offers that flexibility, including asking the user in advance in the permission dialog.
While navigation apps require an exact location to function, many classes of applications do not require GPS level positioning. For example, a Weather app only needs to know your current state or city to provide current location water. This was a feature we asked for back in 2018.
In its WWDC session, Apple used the example of the TV app. Streaming services have different content rights for each region, so the app needs to know the user’s location to show content that the user is legally allowed to view. However, it does not need exact coordinates to do this. That in iOS 14, the TV app only requests high-level regional location data.
iOS 14 includes APIs that allow apps to declare that they only need location for ‘reduced accuracy’, so eager app developers can only gather the minimal amount of information they need. However, iOS 14 also lets the user decide for each app if full access is actually required.
How can you choose approximate or exact location mood?
The new location services access promotion includes a ‘precise’ button in the map sheet. In most cases, this will be enabled by default. The map will show an accurate tracking dot to reflect this. If you do not want the current app to be able to get accurate location information, just tap the on or off switch. The preview of the map will show a wide circular region, representing the approximate location information available for the app.
You can also change this preference at any time in Settings -> Privacy -> Location Services. Select the app name and then change the Precise Location switch in or on, if you wish. For apps that have assigned your location rights for iOS 14, they will automatically gain full access. So if you want to recreate something, this is how you do it.
How does iOS provide some location to apps?
Reducing location data for accuracy is designed to be useful, and maintain privacy. A naive implementation would simply mask the user’s current location with some random sound. iOS 14 is much worse than that.
Instead, Location Services will expose circular regions that are a few miles in diameter. The region data will only be calculated a few times per hour, so exact tracking is not possible. The actual location of the user will be somewhere in the surrounding region, but not necessarily in the center.
The system is intelligent enough to deliver location results that make sense to people. For example, if you drive near the border of two states, the dangerous location area will be completely within the current state in which you are. This means that a Weather app can always display relevant local forecasts without you ever knowing exactly where you are.
Similarly, the radius of the adjacent regions will differ based on context. As the user drives through a dense area of multiple cities, the radius will shrink to a few kilometers to ensure that the app can deliver relevant results. On the flip side, if iOS knows you’re driving through a wide open space, the rough location can be much larger.
The Reduced Accuracy setting also applies to background location updates. Apps running in the background with harmless location rights will only be told four times an hour about location descriptions, and each update will have the same unusual granularity; a region that typically spans a few miles.
What about apps that actually require full location?
Some apps really need exact location, but it will be the onus of the app developer to convince users to give it a go. The app will be told when it gets full accuracy as results get reduced accuracy. It can therefore present users with the interface to inform them of the exact location needed to function (such as a turn-by-turn navigation app) and direct them to Settings. Apps can also request temporary full access.
The ideal behavior is best demonstrated by how the Maps app works in iOS 14. If the user loses a restricted location, the Maps app will display the user’s current location mark as well. It places a banner at the top of the screen to explain this. However, if a user tries to navigate to another location, the Maps app will tell you the exact location needed to do the routing. You can grant full access for that session or go to Settings to disable permanent location rights permanently.
iOS 14 approximate location balances user privacy and convenience
This feature is well thought out. It delivers significant privacy enhancements for Apple customers, without unnecessarily penalizing classes of apps. Exact location rights remain the standard, causing limited disruption to the app ecosystem. Well-behaved apps may volunteer to only receive access rights for reduced accuracy, because they know they need nothing more accurate. If the user disables it, the app has the opportunity to explain why it needs full location and can direct the user directly to the appropriate page in Settings.
The summary is that there are now two axes of location rights in iOS 14; whether the app can always access your location or just when the app is in the foreground, and whether the retrieved location is completely accurate or nearly approximate.
FTC: We use revenue earned by auto-affiliate links. More.
Watch 9to5Mac on YouTube for more Apple news:
