[RajT88]

Like others, I've had location history off for a long time now (5 years?).

It works just fine with it off. Although on some devices, it prompts me to re-enable it every time I launch it (as well as turn on location sharing). I never get these prompts on my phones, but always on my Samsung tablet.

[judge2020]

Google has long abandoned updating the tablet versions of their apps, only maintaining them to ensure they don't break. Even the YouTube app on tablets is years behind on features (the side effect of this is that it harms the experience when using a folding phone).