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Some reasons why I dislike disabling features in iOS

Armen

Armen

macrumors 604
Original poster
Apr 30, 2013
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2,274
Los Angeles
So many users are advised by tech sites to disable specific features in iOS to "increase battery life" or stop Apple from "spying" on you. What they don't realize is the hidden impact disabling features has in other parts of the system. examples:

- Disabling "setting time zone" in location services > system services removes the "sunset to sunrise" option for nightshift and I also believe it screws up the sunset/sunrise time on the Apple watch.

- Disabling background app refresh removes the new Google Maps widgets.

- Disabling frequent locations prevents the Apple maps destinations from working properly.

TL;DR Stop disabling iOS features you never know what other features/apps depend on them.
 
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Ultimately it also depends on what someone uses too. For example, if someone doesn't use or care about maps destinations or widgets then disabling frequent locations or some other related features might not impact them in any way, meaning that having those features enabled won't bring any benefits.
 
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C DM said:
Ultimately it also depends on what someone uses too. For example, if someone doesn't use or care about maps destinations or widgets then disabling frequent locations or some other related features might not impact them in any way, meaning that having those features enabled won't bring any benefits.
Click to expand...

Sure, except that we don't know what else uses frequent locations besides maps.
 
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Armen said:
Sure, except that we don't know what else uses frequent locations besides maps.
Click to expand...
I guess in a sense that's also something that someone finds out based on their use--essentially if something they are looking for or expecting is either not showing up or working as they expect or hope for.
 
As much as I'd love to have the complete iPhone experience, I turn off things like Homekit because I don't have (yet) such devices, or Handoff as I don't have a Mac.
 
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Suckfest 9001 said:
I'm never going to find "Background App Refresh" useful given the battery impact. Waiting a split second for new content to load versus waiting a split second for less new content to load makes no difference for me, and is certainly not work the battery loss.
Click to expand...

I turned off background app refresh just to try it out based on what users like yourself were saying about battery life.

Not only did it not make a difference for me (I already see great battery life) but it sent me down the road of uninstalling and reinstalling the google maps app to try and determine why the widgets were not there.

Luckily for me disabling background app refresh was the last thing I had done so re-enabling it fixed the widget problem immediately.

I'm keeping background app refresh On from now on but will disable it for apps I don't really need data refreshed.
 
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CarlosQG said:
As much as I'd love to have the complete iPhone experience, I turn off things like Homekit because I don't have (yet) such devices, or Handoff as I don't have a Mac.
Click to expand...
And there are certainly cases like that as well, where the feature just doesn't even apply as it's not something you'd use at all or perhaps only might use once in a rare while if there might be an occasion for it.
 
I have background app refresh turned off and the google maps widgets work for me.
 
I turned off background refresh for most apps. Mostly those which i rarely use.

But some apps like google drive for example need background refresh to finish uploads in background. If you turn it off, the app must stay open until uploads have finished.

Or google music forgets you were using it and thinks you logged in twice and the music stops sometimes.

I doubt that it uses much battery, as it seems it is connected to certain tasks but that does not mean tge apps perform in background all the time.

However, for things like YouTube and twitter or such i turned it off.
 
I tired turning off ibooks because I use kindle but that would not let me sync audio books even though they don't have anything to do with ibooks. tried turning off music but that make it so auible could not play my synced audiobooks.
 
Armen said:
I turned off background app refresh just to try it out based on what users like yourself were saying about battery life.

Not only did it not make a difference for me (I already see great battery life) but it sent me down the road of uninstalling and reinstalling the google maps app to try and determine why the widgets were not there.

Luckily for me disabling background app refresh was the last thing I had done so re-enabling it fixed the widget problem immediately.

I'm keeping background app refresh On from now on but will disable it for apps I don't really need data refreshed.
Click to expand...
I think that's the sweet spot really .. keep background app refresh on but turn it off for all the apps that don't need it.
 
Armen said:
I turned off background app refresh just to try it out based on what users like yourself were saying about battery life.

Not only did it not make a difference for me (I already see great battery life) but it sent me down the road of uninstalling and reinstalling the google maps app to try and determine why the widgets were not there.

Luckily for me disabling background app refresh was the last thing I had done so re-enabling it fixed the widget problem immediately.

I'm keeping background app refresh On from now on but will disable it for apps I don't really need data refreshed.
Click to expand...
If a widget isn't working with background refresh off it's either a bug or a very badly written widget. Widgets should work with it off they just take longer to refresh. Report to google
 
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GreyOS said:
If a widget isn't working with background refresh off it's either a bug or a very badly written widget. Widgets should work with it off they just take longer to refresh. Report to google
Click to expand...

It must be badly written because the widget itself is not even available in the list of widgets with refresh turned off. I guess whoever was developing the app assumed refresh would be enabled by default.
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deano1972 said:
I think that's the sweet spot really .. keep background app refresh on but turn it off for all the apps that don't need it.
Click to expand...

Yep. Apple should change policy to have developers prompt to turn on refresh for their apps on install rather than enable it by default and leave it to the user to go and turn off the ones they did not know were on by default.
 
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Armen said:
It must be badly written because the widget itself is not even available in the list of widgets with refresh turned off. I guess whoever was developing the app assumed refresh would be enabled by default.
Click to expand...
Which google maps widget exactly? I see three regardless of background app refresh setting (off, on but not google maps, on and on for google maps)
 
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GreyOS said:
Which google maps widget exactly? I see three regardless of background app refresh setting (off, on but not google maps, on and on for google maps)
Click to expand...

Google updated its google maps app for iOS. "Nearby traffic" (which is new I believe) and "travel times" (which has been there before. Neither of these widgets were available in the list if you clicked edit if refresh was turned off.

http://appadvice.com/post/google-apple-maps/729907
 
IMG_4177.PNG IMG_4178.PNG
Armen said:
Google updated its google maps app for iOS. "Nearby traffic" (which is new I believe) and "travel times" (which has been there before. Neither of these widgets were available in the list if you clicked edit if refresh was turned off.

http://appadvice.com/post/google-apple-maps/729907
Click to expand...
 
I only turn of i background update for some apps i installed that dont need to update in the background.
But all iOS features is on to maximize the experiense.
 
Isn't that logic that people disable options they don't use? I don't need syncing in background except mail app so have disabled background refresh.

Same goes to all system location services except compass calibration and find my phone. I don't use any of them and don't want not needed usage of my phone (don't want to add data to Apple Big Data DataBase ).

Maybe if phone could use Bluetooth and wifi for locations - but it only sends them to Apple.

Google Maps wins
 
That's just not how widgets work, so he's actually wrong.

When you view a widget, you're triggering the respective app to load the information into it in the background. This has nothing to do with background app refresh.
 
Suckfest 9001 said:
That's just not how widgets work, so he's actually wrong.

When you view a widget, you're triggering the respective app to load the information into it in the background. This has nothing to do with background app refresh.
Click to expand...

Let me be clear:

- Widgets do NOT need background app refresh to work properly
- I had background app refresh turned OFF and all my widgets were visible and working properly.
- I downloaded Google maps (was not installed on my phone) to see the changes google made in their map widgets
- I went to the widget screen, clicked edit, scrolled down the list of available widgets and google was NOT in the list.
- I uninstalled/reinstalled Google maps again, same results.
- I enabled background app refresh and went back to the widget screen and "magically" the 2 Google map widgets appeared in the list.

Bug? maybe. That is why I asked someone to try the same scenario to see if they got similar results.
 
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Armen said:
Let me be clear:

- Widgets do NOT need background app refresh to work properly
- I had background app refresh turned OFF and all my widgets were visible and working properly.
- I downloaded Google maps (was not installed on my phone) to see the changes google made in their map widgets
- I went to the widget screen, clicked edit, scrolled down the list of available widgets and google was NOT in the list.
- I uninstalled/reinstalled Google maps again, same results.
- I enabled background app refresh and went back to the widget screen and "magically" the 2 Google map widgets appeared in the list.

Bug? maybe. That is why I asked someone to try the same scenario to see if they got similar results.
Click to expand...
Bug indeed. For whatever reason the widget list didn't update on time.
 
Again I have all the google widgets and I have never has background app refresh on - weird
 
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