Location Tracking on the iPad and iPhone

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In this video, we’re going to look at how we can control which apps use our location on the iPad and iPhone. Not only can we control which apps, but we can also control how often they use the app or when they use the app. Let’s see how this is done. We’re first going to look at this on my iPhone. Now, you may have noticed when you’re using your iPhone, that up towards the top left, where we have the time, I’m going to zoom in up here, in the top left, we have the time there, you may have noticed that every once in a while there’s a little arrow there. What does that arrow mean? Well, let’s zoom back out. And let’s go and open up the Weather app. When I open up the Weather app, the weather needs to track my location. When it does that, you’re gonna see that we have a little arrow in the upper left hand corner. This is telling me that an app is tracking my location, that arrow will remain even when I go to my homescreen, again, indicating that an app is tracking my location. Now eventually, this will disappear. You can see it disappeared here. But if I were to open up the camera app and take a photo, the camera knows my location, that arrow would show again, indicating that an app is tracking my location, how can we see which apps are tracking my location, as well as control when they track my location?

Well, this is done in the Settings app. So let’s open up my settings app here. And now what we need to do is swipe up until we find privacy. Under Privacy, we go over to location services. Under location services, we can see all of the different apps that are using our location. And some of these apps have a little arrow biome. So this is telling me that that app, the news app has used my location, when I go over to the camera app, we can see that that app has used my location because it has an arrow there. If I swipe up, you’re gonna see that the weather app has used my location. When I go to System Services, we can see that it has used my location, but this time what it is, it’s a purple arrow, if I zoom in there, you’re gonna see that it is purple. What does the color mean? Well, if we go down to the very bottom, you’re gonna see we have a key down here. I’m going to zoom in here. And if we go to the left, you’re gonna see we have these different arrows here.

Basically, a hollow arrow indicates that an item may receive your location under certain circumstances, it’s pretty vague. But basically, it’s telling you that it’s only under certain circumstances, while a solid purple arrow indicates that an item has recently used your location. And then a solid gray is an app that has used your location in the last 24 hours. So you can kind of get an idea of when an app last used your location by the color, and if it is solid or hollow. You can tap on any one of these apps here to change how often or when an app tracks your location, I’m going to go to the weather app, I can set it for never ask the next time or when I share only while using the app or only while using an app or widgets. And then of course, always, with the weather app, I have it as always go with other apps, you may just want to have it, let’s go with the news app, you may just want to have it well using the app, you can even set this for always, the only time when it’s going to track your location is when you’re using the app. So each app is going to have a different setting there. But basically, all you have to do is just go in there and tap on the app and you can go and change when it tracks your location.

Now as you can imagine, it works basically the same way on the iPad. Although the location of the arrows in the upper right hand corner, let’s go over to my iPad. And you’re going to see that I have a little arrow in the upper right hand corner here. Basically, this is telling me that an app has recently used my location under certain circumstances. Remember that key. If I go and open up with the Maps app, we can see now that it is solid. So basically behaves the same way, we can see what apps are using our location by going over to our settings app. And then what we do is go over to privacy just like with the iPhone, and then we go over to location services. Again, I can see all of the different apps that I use in my location, I can see when they were by the color or if it is hollow. And if I want to change any one of them, I just tap on it. And I can change when attracts my location. If you want to see a key you can do the same thing at the very bottom, you’re gonna see we have that same key here explaining what the different colors or symbols mean for that arrow.

So that’s how we can control which apps use our location On the iPhone and iPad as well as when they are able to use your location