About popup asking user if they want to continue allowing the app to use location in the background

Hi everyone,


I want to ask and to better understand about the popup that iOS will occasionnally ask the user like :


"Weather" has been using your location in the background. Do you want to continue allowing this ?


How often dose this occur nad how do they determine when to ask ?

And is it possible to prevent this to show to the user ?


I can't find any documentation, the only explanation i can find is from the presentation from WWDC 2014 video "What's New in Core Location".


Thank,

Pat.

Accepted Reply

A few days after the app obtains the "always" authorization and starts using location services in the background, the user will be asked to confirm once again that they still want this app to track their location in the background.


There is no developer action that can be taken to avoid this confirmation if the app is obtaining users' location in the background.

Replies

A few days after the app obtains the "always" authorization and starts using location services in the background, the user will be asked to confirm once again that they still want this app to track their location in the background.


There is no developer action that can be taken to avoid this confirmation if the app is obtaining users' location in the background.

Thank you for a helpful explanation. one more question :


Is it a one time thing or it will continue to ask the user to confirm again and again as long as the app is using location in the background ?


Thanks again.

We have implemented user initiated location tracking for our life safety app, this message is potentially dangerous if the user has activated tracking in distress and an attacker asks to see their phone. Is there a place where a potential work around could be discussed that balances user privacy with our rrequirements?

Your best course of action for your concern to be heard would be to file a Radar and make an Enhancement Request.


In the meantime, it would be a good idea to instruct your users to activate the tracking a few days before they have a risk to be in a situation, and get the secondary warning out of the way.

I have the Sam's Club app, where I selected location services "While Using the App". Unfortunately, now I am getting pop ups almost every time I use my iPhone. After about a week, I have had enough, so I just changed the setting to "Never" until this bug is taken care of. If the next itteration of this beta does not resolve it, I guess I will be left to just turn location service back on for Sam's Club before I go back in to a club. Anyone else experiencing this?

Is there any way to disable these popups? It is very frustrating to see these popups every few days even though I have already confirmed an app may use my location.

Yes I am so fed up with these popups as well. It just doesn't make sense to me why apple needs to confirm the same thing over and over and over. It makes it seem like apple thinks their consumers are stupid.

  • I have a question related to this. On my iPhone I offloaded an app, but I got a random pop up a few days later telling me this offloaded up has been using Location services in the background for last 3 days then gave me an option to always out while using. How is it running in the background if it’s offloaded?

Add a Comment

Hello there,

I was wondering if there is any update on this issue in the latest iOS versions. Is there any way for App Developer to prevent this popup from coming, since User has already agreed to "always" authorisation.

Thanks Kamal

I called regarding this today. After being transferred up to "Kate", Senior Advisor, I was told that this (getting a notification every 3 days from Apple as a pop up to ask you if you would like to continue an app always using your location) is "working as intended". There is no "fix" because it was designed this way and will continue to operate this way. In my opinion, there are three possibilities for this (probably all 3)

  1. Apple has designed this to cater to people who do not understand how to use their phone- probably stemming out of privacy liability issues. They would rather acquiesce to them than stop annoying people every 3 days on their phones who know and understand what they are doing and why they are allowing an app to continue using that feature.
  2. They want to force people to use "find my" instead of other apps to find people, so they allow this feature to bug them every three days in the hopes they will become frustrated and stop using their other location finding app.
  3. Apple would like you to only use Apple phones. By continuing this annoyance, it forces you to have all members on Apple phones as other apps that allow location finding of other phones will continue to prompt this endless popup.

Therefore, the only choices you have are:

  1. Continue using a basic feature of Apple services but be annoyed every three days by Apple's pop up (wonder if the guy who suggested it was watching Netflix at the time), and select what you've already selected in settings to let them know that yes, you indeed to understand English and are very sure you want to do what you have done but in effect you are saying "please ask me again in three days because I can't figure out how to go back in settings."
  2. Disable a basic function of the phone you paid for - always allowing an app to track your location.

Does setting the 'showsBackgroundLocationIndicator'-flag to true (CLLocationManager) disable the popup? Or at least the frequency of it appearing?