[ocdtrekkie]

Yeah, this is one of those extreme punitive peeves about the way Google has written it's products. It's either "we get all your data" or "even you don't get your data on the same device". There's no good reason not to let location history work on the local hardware.

[AstralStorm]

A very good reason for Google though - they want your data. As is not providing full API to their service.