Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by the_snooze 1163 days ago
It's the same with location data. iOS allows you to restrict apps to only approximate location, but apps like YouTube TV and ESPN require precise data just to do region checking. I wish iOS just wouldn't allow apps to figure out if they're getting precise vs. approximate location.
2 comments
hedora 1162 days ago
It’s incredibly confusing when apps do this. Often, the symptom is that GPS looks broken.

GrapheneOS’s location services have a similar issue, but 100x worse. There, apps can definitely have lat/long, but not full Google location service, and all sorts of proprietary software ends up with no/wrong location dots on their maps.

Open source apps, and Google maps competitors work well, so I know it isn’t a hardware or radio issue.

link
HeavyFeather 1161 days ago
> GPS looks broken

It’s a failure both on the app and Apple side to convey this information properly. Approximate location should be shown with a large circle and the user could be told explicitly about this.

Some apps really need exact location (think Uber and Google Maps) but many don’t (any social network)

link
ezfe 1162 days ago
Yeah, I had Snapchat location map enabled with imprecise locations during iOS beta, but they disabled that...like, why! just show the error bar on the map if you care.
link
AlexandrB 1162 days ago
If I had to guess, probably because some of Snapchat's revenue comes from selling your location data and the general location is far less valuable.
link