[cma]

Google won't let you use GPS for maps without also turning on wifi for similar reasons I guess. It does make it more accurate but shouldn't be required.

[slau]

Wasn’t there this thing that Google collected a list of SSIDs using their Google Maps cars, and that gave them “good enough” geolocation using passive WiFi scanning, which was much less battery intensive and faster than GPS?

[0xDEADFED5]

That's nonsense, Maps works perfectly fine with wifi off

[cma]

They might have changed it again, but it was a thing, I saw the prompts mentioned here too:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30167865