Why is my Location constantly being tracked?

[-BigMac-]

Hi guys.

My battery seems to be draining quickly recently.. I’ve checked battery usage and don’t see any app significantly draining it there.

Checking location settings I see the following.. it seems to be tracking these non-stop.

All my apps are closed

Why are they on constantly?

 

[Mr.Blacky]

Just turn off what you don't need/want.

 

[jav6454]

Disable what you don't want. Although networking means your phone's clock becoming out of sync.

 

[MozMan68]

None of those would significantly drain your battery....they are not necessarily tracking "constantly", just when they are needed.

 

[NoBoMac]

Ditto "not necessarily tracking 'constantly'".

IF there is a drain from these, guessing it's the wifi and Find My, as they are phoning home with location information, and might be doing it over cellular. And probably location suggestions, as guessing needs to query servers to for interesting things near by.

The rest seem to be on-device functions to me.

ADD: searching around Apple's Developer site, phones seem to be pinging GPS every second, guessing unless you turn off Location Services, not going to see any real savings. And there are basically two ways to update GPS info: "standard location service" and "significant-change location service": some of these categories MIGHT fall under "significant change".

 

[papbot]

And I’m going to assume since you have Share My Location enabled that you’re sharing your location with someone as my wife and I do with each other. That setting has to keep track of you frequently but hasn’t done so in a while hence the grey arrow. The purple arrows just mean they’ve been on recently not that they are currently active. We have all those enabled including Significant locations and have seen no battery impact from them. We also have a couple weather apps that track us to deliver current localized weather info. Again no battery impact that we’ve ever seen.

 

[-BigMac-]

And I’m going to assume since you have Share My Location enabled that you’re sharing your location with someone as my wife and I do with each other. That setting has to keep track of you frequently but hasn’t done so in a while hence the grey arrow. The purple arrows just mean they’ve been on recently not that they are currently active. We have all those enabled including Significant locations and have seen no battery impact from them. We also have a couple weather apps that track us to deliver current localized weather info. Again no battery impact that we’ve ever seen.

Are you sure?
I was under belief filled purple is active,
hollow purple means its been used recently?

 

[-BigMac-]

None of those would significantly drain your battery....they are not necessarily tracking "constantly", just when they are needed.

It seems they are tracking pretty much constantly judging by my ventures into that screen. This was never the case before.. no new apps added in last month :/

 

[papbot]

Are you sure?
I was under belief filled purple is active,
hollow purple means its been used recently?

A hollow arrow means that a service or app _may_ receive your location under certain conditions. Solid arrow means that it used your location recently.

 

[-BigMac-]

A hollow arrow means that a service or app _may_ receive your location under certain conditions. Solid arrow means that it used your location recently.
View attachment 2001196

Wow thats news to me ?
Thanks so much for the clarification - that actually eases my mind - as I thought the colours lined up differently?

 

[papbot]

Wow thats news to me ?
Thanks so much for the clarification - that actually eases my mind - as I thought the colours lined up differently?

Also if you have routing and traffic enabled it will frequently (don’t know how often) use your location to collect traffic data which is crowd sourced to provide live traffic for Maps navigation.

Those hollow arrows also indicate services that have set boundaries for your location and only kick back in if you go beyond those boundaries. With all the services we have enabled I don’t think our location arrow ever goes off but has not posed any battery issues for us.

 

[Orka]

Well switching some of those off may help but still, location services (find my iPhone) work far more often with iOS 14 and 15 and on newer phones then on prior ios versions on older iPhones. For me it works works every time I unlock my phone, enter settings menu, turn wifi on/off, while simply browsing etc etc. it wasn’t like that before iOS 14.

 

[contacos]

Most of them are not even needed to be turned on.

 

[addamas]

If you don’t use location based reminders or HomeKit you can disable followings (see attachments)

 

[contacos]

If you don’t use location based reminders or HomeKit you can disable followings (see attachments)

Interesting that yours are in a completely different order than mine. I also have something called „Wi-Fi Calling“ in there, which I turned off and it makes no difference. My Wifi Calling works just fine without it enabled there.

There is also something called „Sharing.Framework“ on mine. It actually keeps enabling itself …

 

[addamas]

Interesting that yours are in a completely different order than mine. I also have something called „Wi-Fi Calling“ in there, which I turned off and it makes no difference. My Wifi Calling works just fine without it enabled there.

There is also something called „Sharing.Framework“ on mine. It actually keeps enabling itself …

Oh, that’s crazy. Wi-Fi Calling is enabled by carrier. My called “Plus GSM” is still in Stone Age with LTE, 5G and tethering possible but last month or two finally (!!!) supports iPhones in terms of mms / tether / LTE settings. Can only dream about Wi-Fi Calling (superb thing). Before after each big update I had to put manually all settings… but lost 2G enabler :/

Sharing.Framework seems to be something you might disable - that’s not Android, Google Play Services will not kill your phone when they go berserk ^^

 

[JM]

Interesting that yours are in a completely different order than mine. I also have something called „Wi-Fi Calling“ in there, which I turned off and it makes no difference. My Wifi Calling works just fine without it enabled there.

There is also something called „Sharing.Framework“ on mine. It actually keeps enabling itself …

Are you in a country other than US? (Or a different country than the other person’s screenshots).

I wonder if it’s regionally controlled.

 

[JM]

Hi guys.

My battery seems to be draining quickly recently.. I’ve checked battery usage and don’t see any app significantly draining it there.

Checking location settings I see the following.. it seems to be tracking these non-stop.

All my apps are closed

View attachment 2000957

Why are they on constantly?

I have all my location trackings on, too. I gave up worrying about the battery life, as after testing over several weeks, I didn’t notice any significant or noticeable difference between on vs. off.

If possible, I’d try not to worry about the battery life hit…. So it must be something else draining your battery?

 

[-BigMac-]

I have all my location trackings on, too. I gave up worrying about the battery life, as after testing over several weeks, I didn’t notice any significant or noticeable difference between on vs. off.

If possible, I’d try not to worry about the battery life hit…. So it must be something else draining your battery?

Fair enough - I was thinking of testing it too, but seems like you saved me a few weeks

Yea I don't know.. my battery health is still 100%, maybe its just placebo?

 

[JM]

Fair enough - I was thinking of testing it too, but seems like you saved me a few weeks

Yea I don't know.. my battery health is still 100%, maybe its just placebo?

Oh please do test. The more info the better. (Just my experience with battery testing and location services)

I also tested Siri services on and off and it didn’t have a noticeable effect either. (My theory on that one is that Siri is still watching and learning, it’s just whether or not it reports any data or suggestions.)

As for placebo, maybe. It could also be swings in battery life from iOS release to iOS release.

There’s days where I get two hours lesss screen on time, and some days an hour or two more than normal.

I’d say I’m getting an average MORE battery usage vs. the release version of iOS 15 for 13mini. I was usually getting 3 hours for 50%, and now it’s about ~55% (looking at red line average I drew).

 

[JM]

Fair enough - I was thinking of testing it too, but seems like you saved me a few weeks

Yea I don't know.. my battery health is still 100%, maybe its just placebo?

here is December. It’s ~40% battery usage for 2hr40min. Which is better than what I’m getting now.
I’ll try to find my battery reports at that time in a thread somewhere on here and link it.

*here we go
Post in thread 'Are you happy with your 13 mini?'
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/are-you-happy-with-your-13-mini.2319358/post-30666730

 

[-BigMac-]

Oh please do test. The more info the better. (Just my experience with battery testing and location services)

I also tested Siri services on and off and it didn’t have a noticeable effect either. (My theory on that one is that Siri is still watching and learning, it’s just whether or not it reports any data or suggestions.)

As for placebo, maybe. It could also be swings in battery life from iOS release to iOS release.

There’s days where I get two hours lesss screen on time, and some days an hour or two more than normal.

I’d say I’m getting an average MORE battery usage vs. the release version of iOS 15 for 13mini. I was usually getting 3 hours for 50%, and now it’s about ~55% (looking at red line average I drew).

That's amazing. Thanks so much for your info and experience.
I have so far found the later the iOS version, the lower the battery life - but it may be the placebo :/

 

[JM]

That's amazing. Thanks so much for your info and experience.
I have so far found the later the iOS version, the lower the battery life - but it may be the placebo :/

Maybe placebo. But i agree I think I’m finding that the later the iOS version the more battery it uses.