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Here's When to Expect the iOS 26 Public Beta

Looking forward to trying it out on my iPad. I've never installed a beta on any of my Apple devices before, so I am a little apprehensive. I figure what the heck though, if something goes sideways surely I can just do a full restore.
 
can we please allow shortcuts to switch gps on and off? would be great to activate it when i actually need it rather than running it constantly which while i understand why you might want that, i don’t.
 
phuklok1 said:
would be great to activate it when i actually need it rather than running it constantly
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Are you worried about battery life, or the NSA following you?

GPS (and Location Services) don't use much energy at all -- though apps like Google Maps poll it so often that they can be quite hungry.

As for the second, you'll still be 'on the grid' with GPS off.
 
benwiggy said:
Are you worried about battery life, or the NSA following you?

GPS (and Location Services) don't use much energy at all -- though apps like Google Maps poll it so often that they can be quite hungry.

As for the second, you'll still be 'on the grid' with GPS off.
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i truly don’t see any reason to not be able to switch on/off gps with an automated shortcut. true, you are not off the grid, but databrokers, advertisers, nefarious actors, people tracking behaviors, driving habits, etc - which all have been in the news with various abuses would have to purchase your far more general location data from a telco, while currently they can easily sweep that data off your system for free and so they do. if you are ok with that, that cool, just don’t create a shortcut to turn it off. it's a more advanced thing to do anyway. more options and flexibility are a good thing.
 
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phuklok1 said:
i truly don’t see any reason to not be able to switch on/off gps with an automated shortcut. true, you are not off the grid, but databrokers, advertisers, nefarious actors, people tracking behaviors, driving habits, etc - which all have been in the news with various abuses would have to purchase your far more general location data from a telco, while currently they can easily sweep that data off your system for free and so they do. if you are ok with that, that cool, just don’t create a shortcut to turn it off. it's a more advanced thing to do anyway. more options and flexibility are a good thing.
Click to expand...
Location services and GPS are not the same thing. GPS is something that pings satellites overhead and uses the pings to triangulate your location. It does not send data out. It cannot send data out. GPS doesn't throw data in that direction. That's not how that technology works. There's no reason to turn it off. If you do, once you turn it back on you will have to wait for it to find satellites all over again before it can figure out where you are.

Location services uses the coordinates provided by the GPS, as well as a few other methods, to determine where you are. It's also not an outgoing thing. Location services looks at avaliable data to figure out where you are. Some of those methods are up for debate on what qualifies as outgoing data but the general idea is no, it doesn't say "Dave is on the 14th floor of the chrysler building and thinking impure thoughts."

There's little reason to turn off your phone's the ability to determine your location. There IS great reason to limit access to that information. Thats where permissions come in. iOS already has the ability to restrict or grant access to the location data on your phone. THAT'S the thing you want to turn off.
 
mentaluproar said:
Location services and GPS are not the same thing. GPS is something that pings satellites overhead and uses the pings to triangulate your location. It does not send data out. It cannot send data out. GPS doesn't throw data in that direction. That's not how that technology works. There's no reason to turn it off. If you do, once you turn it back on you will have to wait for it to find satellites all over again before it can figure out where you are.

Location services uses the coordinates provided by the GPS, as well as a few other methods, to determine where you are. It's also not an outgoing thing. Location services looks at avaliable data to figure out where you are. Some of those methods are up for debate on what qualifies as outgoing data but the general idea is no, it doesn't say "Dave is on the 14th floor of the chrysler building and thinking impure thoughts."

There's little reason to turn off your phone's the ability to determine your location. There IS great reason to limit access to that information. Thats where permissions come in. iOS already has the ability to restrict or grant access to the location data on your phone. THAT'S the thing you want to turn off.
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while yes, i agree that I was using the term GPS in lieu of Location services,but it was not implied that GPS sends out data, what is fact is that the phone stores all this location data in great detail over an large period of time and it can and is scooped up by apps. one can do a cursory web search for this issue or prior problems with the sdk controlling this behavior. There is enough information out there in videos, security websites or news reports.

I would prefer to be able to turn this off period when I do not require it in an automated fashion, regardless of relying upon permissions, which in IOS cannot be audited, we have no access to the underlying OS. saving even a tiny bit of power is just a side benefit. you are free to do as you wish. Currently, turning off location services requires going into settings to disable, allowing advanced users to use shortcuts to do this would not impact the way you use your device. I fail to understand the rational of limiting other people choices. You can already run shortcut automation to toggle wifi or bluetooth on/off (which one could argue is far more fundamental to the operation of the device) so one must wonder why was a choice made to specifically not allow toggling location services with automation.
 
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Still not out yet, but maybe today will be the day! I wanna put it on my iPad that I basically stopped using since switching from my mini to a 16. Recently I just use my iMac and iPhone, but with the new windowing system in iPadOS I think I may use my iPad more again.
 
I like the new safari. But everything else about this release I absolutely hate. MacOS and iPadOS are especially terrible.
 
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