[anigbrowl]

You can turn it off on Android, I did so a few years ago. Although my phone has a perfectly good GPS receiver, Google really dislikes having it turned off and constantly pesters me to turn it back on when using their Map product.

[pmontra]

I enable it from the drop down settings menu when I need navigation in Google Maps and in OSMAnd. Google Maps doesn't ask me to turn on Location Services if I'm only looking at a map or to street view.

[londons_explore]

I can kinda see why GPS working would be a core feature of a map product on a mobile device...

[andylynch]

Location access on device absolutely. The problem here is the Google has been collecting extremely detailed location data, going back years, for nearly all of its users.

And while it’s mildly interesting or useful to some, it’s dangerous to others, especially given it’s stored in a central location out of their control, and running all the time, not just when you’re using Maps.

[anigbrowl]

Sorry, I phrased that poorly. Google dislikes having google location services turned off (eg when requesting directions), although the phone has a perfectly good GPS receiver to figure out where it is currently. It's like they don't want to do any lookups unless they're allowed to store the data, so I find myself manually typing in a nearby address as my starting point to get directions.

[iudqnolq]

The annoying thing is that if you disable "automatically track everywhere I go" you lose features like "let me manually provide my home address so I can tap the home button to get directions there". I totally get why that kind of thing gets overlooked, but it's technically unnecessary and also annoying.