iOS 13 now shows you a map of where apps have been tracking you

https://9to5mac.com/2019/06/08/ios-13-location-permissions/

by notlukesky • 7 years ago

469 163 7 years ago

toufka• 7 years ago

Fantastic. It is the asymmetry in information collection that is so frustrating as a consumer. In an ideal marketplace, information flows freely, and informed choices make the market move towards efficient transactions. When no consumers know what information is being collected or how it’s used, and it’s value is obfuscated, then deep rifts in expectations can emerge.

We need more of this sunlight in order to make good decisions about how we generate and share information about our lives.

m4632• 7 years ago

With trust, trade is unlimited.

That said, we should be able to say NO - and this includes apple. For instance, why should we have to identify ourselves to apple?

reaperducer• 7 years ago

AFAIK, you don't. An iPhone will work fine without signing in to any Apple service and you can opt out of all Apple data collection right in the device.

I've set up several testing iDevices for work with no Apple accounts.

The only thing you can't do without an Apple account is to use the Apple services like the App Store and iCloud and other paid services.

I think even software updates can be done without an account, but I'm not sure since I haven't tried this.

redprince• 7 years ago

I'm fairly certain that you don't have to identify in any way at least where I live (Germany). You need to register your Apple account with a valid E-Mail address, which can be as fake as you want it to be. Store credits can be bought anonymously with cash at gas stations or other brick and mortar stores.

antpls• 7 years ago

Also, the problem is biologic : an human has a limited ability to receive, process and integrate new information for a given period of time.

The data centers and CPUs are able to process magnitude more "information" than a single human, the market cannot be a free flow of information between humans and machines.

We have to define what the quantity of information an human can reasonably receive and give attention to, and put some limit into the market to not overhelm people.

reilly30002• 7 years ago

Good gravy this would be an abysmal report on Android. In my experience many of the free utility apps and games I downloaded required location tracking for no good reason. I’m on iOS for that (and other) reasons.

codedokode4• 7 years ago

Android has a list of apps that requested permission for location.

sahaskatta• 7 years ago

I get a notification on my Galaxy S9 each time an app tries to access my location, microphone, etc. It's called permissions monitor and it appears to either be part of Android itself or a feature Samsung added to my device.

tehlike• 7 years ago

What kind of utility apps?

The ones i am aware are all useless (battery saver, space cleaner etc), and at some point one or two was requesting screenshot access (forgot the name) under the false pretense of "accesibility".

notlukesky• 7 years ago

What are the other reasons?

reilly30002• 7 years ago

- I could never get used to the keyboards

- The devices I owned were generally pretty slow, or got slow over time

- iMessage lock-in

- Hundreds of dollars invested in Apple purchases

- The app ecosystem, while giant, always seemed to be junky to me

- a few iOS-only apps

- I never found a decent SMS from desktop solution, although I'm sure they are out there

- Vaguely superior hardware

- Animojis is probably the biggest one

pixelrevision• 7 years ago

Android also has a terrible issue with not having good options on this front. You have to either not download the video game that needs open access to your contacts or micromanage some sketchy looking app that will help you “block” these sorts of things.

nitrogen2• 7 years ago

That changed several versions ago.

frosted-flakes• 7 years ago

You can selectively deny permissible requests after the app is installed, but what irritates me is that granting access to my location allows the app to continually track me while it's running in the background (even if you never open the app). I've heard this will change in a future version of Android.

I discovered this when I was scrolling through the DTEK app on my BlackBerry, which shows every time an app requests sensitive data access, and saw that a bunch of apps that I hadn't opened in a while (like GasBuddy) were accessing my location every 5 minutes.

shereadsthenews• 7 years ago

Why do you download such apps?

dheera2• 7 years ago

LineageOS + Xposed which gives you MUCH better control than iOS. In particular there are plugins that allow you to fake certain info to apps, including returning fake IMEI and fake sensor data.

Operyl2• 7 years ago

And also trips (unless you try really hard) the stupid "Safety Check" which I can see as beneficial in some cases (i.e. banking apps) but .. is frustrating in other cases (like Pokémon Go, other games/apps).

vanous• 7 years ago

You can always choose to pay for a utility apps from reputable developers, rather then use adtech apps.

jumbopapa• 7 years ago

I know. I have been a fan of Android for years, but with the privacy issues related to Google I can't help but to think that my next device will be an iPhone. My Galaxy S8+ still works perfectly fine though, so I'm not sure I'm ready to buy something I don't need.

codedokode4• 7 years ago

They don't have options like "Never allow" or "Provide fake location". Why is that so?

judge2020• 7 years ago

You can choose to "never allow" when it originally asks for location and in settings, but it's not one of the options you can choose on the "one day after 'always' tracking was enabled" popup.

duskwuff• 7 years ago

"Never allow" already exists. The user can deny location access when it is first requested, or can disable location access through Settings.

"Provide fake location" is not necessary, because apps which fail to work when you deny location access are rejected during App Store review.

codedokode4• 7 years ago

What if the app works without location, but gives some benefits only if you enable it? E.g. a shop app gives a discount if you allow tracking you.

akmarinov2• 7 years ago

Well Pokemon Go basically doesn't work without location and it wasn't rejected.

pdimitar• 7 years ago

You can disable any app's location access from the iOS settings, it's fairly trivial.

As for fake location, well, give it time. They seem to be willing to provide fake emails for the new Sign In With Apple service. So they might start actually obfuscating location in the future.

codedokode4• 7 years ago

Fake location is necessary because apps may annoy users with popups until you grant the permission or give some benefits in exchange for location.

untog• 7 years ago

They're aren't providing fake emails, they are providing masked emails. A fake location is a step or two beyond that, it's active deception.

dpkonofa8• 7 years ago

I really don't understand how people can simultaneously say that Apple is anti-consumer and then ignore moves like this that not only show that Apple is committed to consumers. It would be so easy for them to gather all this info and sell it to advertisers and third-parties and yet they refuse to.

On top of that, I think it's strangely telling that most of the anti-Apple stories when it comes to the "right to repair" movement all have to misrepresent what Apple is doing or why they're taking the action they are in order to make the story interesting and fit the anti-consumer narrative. We live in a really strange time.

snek• 7 years ago

Apple can both make choices and improve user security and make choices that hurt user's ability to repair their devices. They should obviously be commended for things like this app tracking, but that doesn't mean they don't do bad things.

ikeyany6• 7 years ago

I've heard plenty of arguments that don't misrepresent Apple. For example, the iPhone has never had replaceable batteries. Also, they were proven to slow down old phones without telling users why, until it became an ordeal [1].

[1] https://news.northeastern.edu/2018/10/26/the-new-iphone-come...

saagarjha3• 7 years ago

they were proven to degrade old software to strong-arm users to update

They never did this.

gumby• 7 years ago

I've heard plenty of arguments that don't misrepresent Apple'l. For example, Apple has never had replaceable batteries.

Not only have many apple devices had replaceable batteries, I actually own an apple battery charger (model MC500LL/A)

sitharus• 7 years ago

they were proven to degrade old software to strong-arm users to update

I don't recall this being proven. I recall Apple stating the power consumption was limited to prevent the devices over drawing power from the battery and self-resetting. They subsequently added a battery status overview so users could judge if they could simply replace the battery.

I won't argue that they couldn't have done this sooner or handled it better, but it's quite different from software degrading old devices.

Twisell2• 7 years ago

I think that telling you that my 2002 PPC iBook actually had remplaçables batteries, as well as all Apple laptop of that era, is pretty much proving misrepresentation...

They were very practical (especially when video playback autonomy was limited to 2h and word processing to around 5h) but clunky. We could discuss for ages if, now a common choice across multiple manufacturers, moving for internal non-moving battery was clever or odious. But the verifiable facts remains that Apple once sold replaceable batteries out there.

askafriend2• 7 years ago

Please don't spread misinformation. It causes real damage.

Your statement is verifiable misinformation.

I am a customer who was actually experiencing unexpected shutdowns due to voltage spikes on a naturally degraded Li-Ion battery on my iPhone 6s. This is something that happens to all Li-Ion batteries. I had experienced this on my previous Android phones too when they got old.

The change Apple made was throttling the voltage from spiking to a point that it can shut down a degraded battery when your phone estimates that it has 50% charge left. Yes, this means older phones with degraded battery health (due to normal wear/tear) would run a bit slower. This is the right thing to do because otherwise it means customers would have phones shutting down unexpectedly when they needed them the most (e.g. calling an Uber, or some other critical function). It's a serious issue that absolutely needed addressing, and I'm glad Apple addressed it (and I hope other manufacturers do too).

The mistake Apple made was not communicating this change more widely or explaining in more detail from the start. But they did communicate it in the change notes of the original update they delivered. They weren't trying to intentionally hide it like you're trying to imply.

ssivark• 7 years ago

Refer what other comments says about un-repairability of Apple hardware, or software slowdowns, or the inability to replace the battery on phones/tablets.

The answer seems to be that Apple doesn't have a monolithic pro/anti consumer opinion, but just whatever is better for their business profits.

- Do whatever they can to push people to buy more devices and more expensive ones.

- Do whatever they can to make their iOS devices seem preferable to Android.

Apple is not a special snowflake, as far as large corporations go.

dpkonofa8• 7 years ago

Except that people are misrepresenting all 3 of those situations to make their point. Apple didn't slow down people's phones in order to get them to buy newer models. They actually slowed them down to extend their lifespans when the battery started to fail. While I do think that they could have communicated that better and that their current solution is pretty decent, it's a huge leap to say that this was an intentional move on their part to screw their customers over.

And the repairability and replacement are also 2 things that I understand because it forces users to ensure that they're using genuine Apple components that won't detract from the device or the experience of using it. When so much of your business stems from the reputation of having quality products, third-party repairability seems like a terrible trade-off if there's no quality control.

saagarjha3• 7 years ago

Not being able to repair your device is anti-consumer–in a vacuum. In the real world, there are trade offs: making devices repairable makes them thicker, more complicated, etc. Those that understand this and feel that Apple is compromising in the wrong direction have a reasonable opinion.

However, there is quite a bit of misrepresentation as you mention: often “right to repair” people forget that this compromise exists. In particularly egregious examples (YouTubers in particular) they willfully neglect to discuss this. Off the top of my head, Louis Rossmann has literally lied to people to stir up controversy: see the media outrage about “Apple confiscating batteries”, which was completely orchestrated.

techslave• 7 years ago

there’s quite a bit of proper criticism also. parts and schematics should be available for DIY or 3rd party repair. it’s not all “apple is misunderstood “ as you are framing it.

threeseed• 7 years ago

Apple devices are repairable. They just don't make it easy for you to do it.

But in every city there will be hundreds of shops which will repair it for you.

addicted• 7 years ago

It’s not unimaginable that Apple could be pro consumer in terms of privacy (at least relative to their competitors) and anti-consumer in terms of repairability and replacability (relative to their competitors).

drdaeman• 7 years ago

App Store as the single source of apps is, debatably, anti-consumer. You can't have an app that doesn't fit Apple's policies, at all.

Safari as the only browser choice for handling web links, too. Even Microsoft in their days always allowed users change the defaults.

c3534l• 7 years ago

Apple's recent forays into privacy rights has really lightened my opinion of them.

peteretep3• 7 years ago

One benefit to having a gay guy from Alabama in charge is a company that understands you don't want everyone else knowing your business.

benjoffe2• 7 years ago

It seems a bit extreme to offer apps one of two extremes: either my sub-metre location or no location at all. It seems the reasonable default for location sharing should be something like sharing the rough suburb that I'm in. This solves most use-cases such as showing closest store locations, delivery options, dating apps showing nearby matches, etc. It's only the occasional navigation app that needs to know exactly where the user is located.

olliej• 7 years ago

That’s why iOS 13 added a share location once button, in addition to the existing share forever and share forever even when the app isn’t running.

benjoffe2• 7 years ago

That's a good feature but quite different, if the user is at home when they need to use the app that first time then it reveals where the user lives and possibly personally identifies them.

nichochar• 7 years ago

underrated idea! This is a great idea, and easy to implement.

ultrarunner• 7 years ago

I specifically get directions “home” to a neighbor’s house a bit away. Once I know where I am, I kill Google Maps. I’m sure they could, if they wanted to badly enough, figure the whole thing out, but at least my profile has a certain amount of uncertainty (though what utility that has is probably debatable).

I would love to be able to fuzz my location within a certain (randomized?) radius of my home for certain apps. Strava has a ‘privacy circle’ that essentially accomplishes this when sharing GPX tracks of runs around one’s home. An OS-level feature would be fantastic in many cases.

Fronzie2• 7 years ago

Have you ever checked https://www.google.com/maps/timeline?pb to see? In my case, google knows where my phone is during the night: at home.

aasasd2• 7 years ago

Just so you know, if you're using regular Google-infused Android, then depending on how you ‘kill’ Maps it may still be running in the background. And it may start in the background without you running the app.

I'd also bet that Google's other apps transmit your location anyway―if only because other apps use it too―and that it's not necessarily reflected in the timeline in the web profile.

close04• 7 years ago

I would love to be able to fuzz my location within a certain (randomized?) radius of my home for certain apps

I'm not sure about the details of the implementation but with location you still want something reasonably accurate. So the random radius can't vary too wildly. After you collect enough data points couldn't you infer the real location from that circle?

soohyung• 7 years ago

People are actually working on something very similar to this in research [1]. By applying random noise to location data the user's individual privacy can be protected while still allowing for collection of usage (or in this case location) statistics etc. This is the key idea behind local differential privacy (which Apple also uses to collect anonymous statistics on usage data [2]).

[1] http://www.shivakasiviswanathan.com/ICDE16b.pdf

[2] https://machinelearning.apple.com/docs/learning-with-privacy...

chippy• 7 years ago

Yahoo's Fireagle was an attempt to make a "Location broker" for apps. You could allow applications as much or as little detail as you like. I think it was a product before it's time.

Would this be possible with todays phone and hardware etc?

xhruso00• 7 years ago

The whole popup window experience is like Windows Vista.

fullshark• 7 years ago

I support Apple trying to turn privacy into a major marketing issue, but I think we’ve basically already learned that consumers just do not care.

awakeasleep• 7 years ago

I'd modify your idea to say "consumers generally don't make decisions based on privacy alone" -- a much milder take that leaves a lot of room for experimentation in the future.

Godel_unicode• 7 years ago

What evidence do you have that this milder phrasing is justified? Everything I've seen agrees with GP.

iscrewyou• 7 years ago

They will care. They watch marketing. And that is the point Apple is trying to make.

I assume, next is banners at the Apple Stores and at Best Buys.

baddox• 7 years ago

On the contrary, I think we’re learning that consumers do care if they feel like they have some basic knowledge and control of their personal data.

sudoscript• 7 years ago

It’s a trade off between convenience and security. Consumers _do_ care, just not enough to put unusual amounts of effort in. These moves by Apple make it much easier, and could become things consumers expect from their devices, since they don’t have to give up convenience to have them.

SlowRobotAhead• 7 years ago

“If I would have asked people what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse”

You’re right. If Apple can show people you can have security and it can be easy, people will demand that.

somatic• 7 years ago

Yeah, but what if the marketing isn’t for consumers?

What if someone at Apple was smart enough to figure out that the rampant abuses perpetrated by privacy-monetizing Silicon Valley et al. were ultimately time-limited and would blow up eventually?

What if Apple’s privacy-focused marketing was aimed at regulators?

fnordsensei• 7 years ago

And/or aimed at people like me, who will then go on to force/nag people around me to use more private/secure alternatives.

tty23007• 7 years ago

They don't care because they don't see what there is to care about. Features like this show them visually how incredibly invasive most apps are.

lotsofpulp• 7 years ago

The numbers show the company advancing privacy for consumers is reaping 90%+ of the profits in the business. While it’s not conclusive proof, I would say that the company might know something about what their customers want.

xiphias2• 7 years ago

Everybodyin the world has dirty secrets. When governments were unable to use the data from big companies, it didn't matter.

The more aggressive governments get (for example actively asking social network ids on the border), the more people start caring about their privacy.

kevinherron• 7 years ago

Consumers care about what companies and marketing departments tell them to care about.

Apple pushing privacy might actually make people care.

lern_too_spel5• 7 years ago

Does it show Apple itself? Unlike every other phone platform, iOS does not allow a user to get their GPS location without telling Apple what it was.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207056

"By enabling Location Services for your devices, you agree and consent to the transmission, collection, maintenance, processing, and use of your location data and location search queries by Apple and its partners and licensees to provide and improve location-based and road traffic-based products and services."

gatherhunterer3• 7 years ago

Android has over half a dozen settings that must be disabled before the OS actually stops tracking your location and they are spread out to different menus. This is to say nothing of built-in apps like Google maps that have their own location tracking settings which, if changed, return all of the OS settings to their default activated setting. Manufacturers can have their own location services on top of Android’s. Updating Android or firmware means having to find all of the hidden settings again to turn off any that have been reset.

Apple’s policy is in no way unique and iOS settings cannot be implicitly overridden by app settings. The global settings are app-specific. I have location settings on and disabled for every app except Apple Maps, other apps still need explicit permission when they try to use my location.

izacus3• 7 years ago

There is just one setting for location access which blocks it off for all, including OS services.

Please don't spread dishonest misinformation, there's no need for that.

lern_too_spel5• 7 years ago

Apple’s policy is in no way unique

Nonsense. Sending location data back to Google is opt in. Apple doesn't even let you opt out. It's amazing how many people Apple has fooled with their marketing.

Your own examples are for apps that send the same data on iOS and are subject to the same OS permissions on Android and iOS.

m0zg• 7 years ago

I wish I could also give apps "coarse" information about my location. Say down to a mile, or even just the zipcode (5 digits only). I.e. if a news app wants to know what to serve to me, zipcode is quite enough. If I'm looking for pizza on yelp they don't need my exact location. That way on the one hand the apps can function, but on the other they can't really track you accurately enough for it to be terribly privacy-invasive.

AYBABTME• 7 years ago

Apple might end up becoming a benevolent king for whoever decides (and can afford) to use its ecosystem.

I'm in favour of that, I wish it will democratize this concept to other companies, although it's unlikely Google will since it's in competition with their core business model.

tempodox• 7 years ago

I've been using the location tracking permission setting from day one. But still, making it more obvious and visible is a win for users who are less aware.

zerogvt• 7 years ago

Is it my idea or Apple is aggressively betting more and more in providing privacy to end users? Also it seems that the other side of the party (Android and free services) is moving fast towards the other end of the spectrum.

ENOTTY• 7 years ago

I predict apps will spam location requests to induce decision fatigue on the 'share once' users, who will switch to 'share while using' or 'share always'

OldHand2018• 7 years ago

According to the WWDC video [1], this can't happen. Your app has to test for permission every time you want it, and iOS decides when to show the permission dialog.

Additionally, the 'share always' option goes away. Your app has to earn it, or petition Apple directly for that permission. The 'share while using' is also now temporary, as iOS will periodically ask the user to confirm that this is what they want. iOS does this when the user is not using the app (on the home screen), which is why you must now check to see if you have permission every single time.

[1] https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2019/708/

Karunamon3• 7 years ago

That’s a pain in the ass. I have a number of apps I explicitly granted background access to. That should be my decision, not Apple’s.

eklavyaa• 7 years ago

I am glad I shifted to iPhone a year back and was able to convince my wife to shift too last month. Why people who can afford a price of iPhone buy other brand is beyond my understanding. When apps are not even reviewed by anyone on Android then it certainly puts the user at more risk compared to iOS user.

notahappycamper• 7 years ago

Some people are willing to accept a small amount of risk to be able to do what they want with their device without being restricted to what the manufacturer says is OK.

iOS 13 now shows you a map of where apps have been tracking you

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