System Services question

[Fatboy71]

I live in the UK.

I've noticed in the Location Services section at the bottom there is a System Services section.

When I click on this I have the below shown:

I have had a look around on the net, but I cannot get a description of what each of the services listed in this section are for, or what they do. I was wondering if anyone could give me an explanation as to what each one of them is/does.


Thanks in advance.

 

[bandofbrothers]

I live in the UK.

I've noticed in the Location Services section at the bottom there is a System Services section.

When I click on this I have the below shown:

Image

I have had a look around on the net, but I cannot get a description of what each of the services listed in this section are for, or what they do. I was wondering if anyone could give me an explanation as to what each one of them is/does.


Thanks in advance.

There is threads on this already in connection to battery drain etc.
Google is your friend too.

Compass callibration speaks for itself.

Diagnostics and usage send info back to apples servers to help it better its services.

Location based iAds is about the adds within apps you use which push offers etc to you.

mobile network search speaks for itself.

setting time zone is all about if you fly/travel from one zone to another it changes zones automatically.

Traffic is to do with gps mapping as you drive i believe.

 

[Fatboy71]

There is threads on this already in connection to battery drain etc.
Google is your friend too.

Compass callibration speaks for itself.

Diagnostics and usage send info back to apples servers to help it better its services.

Location based iAds is about the adds within apps you use which push offers etc to you.

mobile network search speaks for itself.

setting time zone is all about if you fly/travel from one zone to another it changes zones automatically.

Traffic is to do with gps mapping as you drive i believe.

Thanks for the help. I had Googled prior to posting this, but I couldn't find any clear explanation for each of the services.

When you mention 'mobile network search speaks for itself'. I am still not clear on what this feature does, has there is a setting in SETTINGS/CARRIER, which lets you choose AUTOMATIC, so I cannot see the 'mobile network search' been the same thing, it wouldn't make sense for to have essentially the same feature/function in two separate places on the iPhone.

Thanks again for the help, its much appreciated

 

[steve-p]

mobile network search speaks for itself.

Not really. Whether on or off, it doesn't affect the phone's ability to find networks to connect to, either in the home country or when roaming internationally. I'm still not sure what this particular setting means.

 

[jkozlow3]

There is threads on this already in connection to battery drain etc.
Google is your friend too.

Compass callibration speaks for itself.

Diagnostics and usage send info back to apples servers to help it better its services.

Location based iAds is about the adds within apps you use which push offers etc to you.

mobile network search speaks for itself.

setting time zone is all about if you fly/travel from one zone to another it changes zones automatically.

Traffic is to do with gps mapping as you drive i believe.

None of these settings "speak for themselves". You can disable them and your phone will still find mobile networks, set the time zone correctly (as long as you have the General>Date and Time>Set Automatically setting turned on), etc.

I have all of mine set to off and my phone still works the same as if I have them on. When I come out of the subway, my phone finds a cell tower, etc.

So no, they do not speak for themselves. Obviously these settings use GPS since they're under "Location Services", but are any of them really beneficial?

----------

I live in the UK.

I've noticed in the Location Services section at the bottom there is a System Services section.

When I click on this I have the below shown:

Image

I have had a look around on the net, but I cannot get a description of what each of the services listed in this section are for, or what they do. I was wondering if anyone could give me an explanation as to what each one of them is/does.


Thanks in advance.

Just to confirm, yours were all disabled automatically upon a fresh install of iOS 5 (not from a backup) or the purchase of a new 4S? In the U.S. all of these settings are enabled by default in iOS 5. If they are disabled in the U.K. by default, that proves that none of them are really necessary IMO.

 

[Mr.C]

None of these settings "speak for themselves". You can disable them and your phone will still find mobile networks, set the time zone correctly (as long as you have the General>Date and Time>Set Automatically setting turned on), etc.

I have all of mine set to off and my phone still works the same as if I have them on. When I come out of the subway, my phone finds a cell tower, etc.

So no, they do not speak for themselves. Obviously these settings use GPS since they're under "Location Services", but are any of them really beneficial?

----------



Just to confirm, yours were all disabled automatically upon a fresh install of iOS 5 (not from a backup) or the purchase of a new 4S? In the U.S. all of these settings are enabled by default in iOS 5. If they are disabled in the U.K. by default, that proves that none of them are really necessary IMO.

Mine is an unlocked model here in the UK which I restored from a backup of my 4. When I read this thread I decided to check them and they were all turned on by default so I turned them all off.

 

[bandofbrothers]

There's no secrecy with these settings !

Google and other threads explain what they are and do.

Bothering to perform searches will explain them.

If your concerned or are interested then maybe an e mail to apple would help.

Instead of pulling me on my reply why not Be pro active and provide an answer yourself !

 

[Fatboy71]

Just to confirm, yours were all disabled automatically upon a fresh install of iOS 5 (not from a backup) or the purchase of a new 4S? In the U.S. all of these settings are enabled by default in iOS 5. If they are disabled in the U.K. by default, that proves that none of them are really necessary IMO.

All of them were switched on, I then switched them off. But I thought I would ask on here if anyone could give me a clear explanation as to what all of them do.

I restored my iPhone 4 as a new device a few days ago has I was seeing a decrease in battery life since updating to iOS 5 (which as now disappeared).

----------

There's no secrecy with these settings !

Google and other threads explain what they are and do.

Bothering to perform searches will explain them.

If your concerned or are interested then maybe an e mail to apple would help.

Instead of pulling me on my reply why not Be pro active and provide an answer yourself !

If you read post no 4, I did say that,

'I had Googled prior to posting this, but I couldn't find any clear explanation for each of the services'.

Also I was not 'pulling me on my reply' if you feel that I was doing this then this was not my intention. I even thanked you for the help after you had replied.

 

[Ding.Dong]

I was pretty confused by these settings also. I found this Apple support document that helps explain them:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4995

Apparently, this is what the "Traffic" setting is for:

if you are traveling (for example, in a car) and Location Services is on, a GPS-enabled iOS device will also periodically send GPS locations and travel speed information in an anonymous and encrypted form to Apple, to be used for building up a crowd-sourced road traffic database.

It looks like Apple is planning a navigation service with traffic for a future update.

 

[Fatboy71]

I was pretty confused by these settings also. I found this Apple support document that helps explain them:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4995

Apparently, this is what the "Traffic" setting is for:



It looks like Apple is planning a navigation service with traffic for a future update.

Thanks for that. At least I'm not the only one who is confused at what these settings do, even though some people say that ALL the settings in this section are self explanatory.

I had seen the information in your link. You would expect that there would be somewhere on the net that would have a breakdown of each of the features/settings in this section and describe what they do in some detail.

I Googled before posting this topic, but I could find nowhere that showed this.

 

[thelookingglass]

Thanks for that. At least I'm not the only one who is confused at what these settings do, even though some people say that ALL the settings in this section are self explanatory.

I had seen the information in your link. You would expect that there would be somewhere on the net that would have a breakdown of each of the features/settings in this section and describe what they do in some detail.

I Googled before posting this topic, but I could find nowhere that showed this.

These things are not at all self explanatory and I think Apple was being a bit sneaky in their implementation. Clearly, all of these settings are meant to relay user data back to Apple for one reason or another. They turned all the services on and the status indicator OFF by default. Your average user will have no idea that their location data is being sent back to Apple, but Apple gets out of trouble by claiming that users have the option of turning all this stuff off.