Have you ever noticed certain apps always knowing your precise location or received recommendations for nearby businesses randomly throughout the day? This is thanks to location services on your iPhone. While location access enables useful mapping and personalized recommendations, you may want to turn it off at times for privacy, security, battery life gains or troubleshooting reasons.
This comprehensive guide will explain what exactly location services are, why you may want to disable them, and provide step-by-step instructions for turning location off on your iPhone completely or for specific apps only.
Let‘s start with a quick comparison of important features with location enabled versus disabled:
| Feature | Location ON | Location OFF |
|---|---|---|
| Maps Navigation | Accurate directions and current location displayed | Directions and tracking unavailable |
| Location-Based App Recommendations | Personalized recommendations for nearby places | Generic non-location based recommendations |
| Find My app | Can track and locate your iPhone if lost | Unable to remotely locate device |
| Location History | Maps and other apps record your movement history | No location tracking or history stored |
| Battery Life | Reduced battery from near-constant location checks | Increased battery life without background checks |
Based on this table, disabling location access involves a tradeoff between losing useful maps and recommendations versus benefits like better privacy and battery gains. The choice depends on your specific needs and priorities.
A Deeper Look at Location Services
Before learning how to turn off location services, it‘s important to understand exactly what they are and how iPhone apps utilize your location data.
What are Location Services?
Location Services refers to the system framework allowing apps and services to collect and utilize data related to your geographic location. Sources providing location data include:
GPS – Satellites pinpoint latitude/longitude coordinates down to precise meters when outdoors
Cellular – Carrier cell tower connections triangulated to estimate locations to within 100m – 3km
WiFi – Nearby public/private WiFi networks identified to enhance accuracy
Location data could include real-time tracking of your live coordinates as you move about, one-time access when first opening an app, or periodic checks for updated recommendations nearby.
How Apps Use Your Location
Many common iPhone apps leverage location services features for:
- Maps navigation and directions
- Personalized recommendations and advertisements for local businesses
- Social media check-ins like Facebook or Foursquare
- Ridesharing/food delivery tracking your location until pickup
- Fitness and weather apps monitoring during workouts or storms
- And much more…
While many location-based functions are useful, constant unchecked background access to your location data does pose privacy and security risks covered next.
Privacy Concerns with Location Tracking
Location data provides great utility for apps to contextualize information to your area. However, it also carries significant privacy risks if accessed without proper user knowledge and control.
Potential privacy issues include:
Data Collection – Companies can build alarmingly detailed movement profiles over time based on all places you visit daily.
Data Sharing – Location history may be sold to or accessed by third parties without your explicit consent.
Personal Safety – Location data falling into the wrong hands could enable stalking/tracking and compromise personal safety.
Nuisance Ads – Highly targeted location-based ads could become overly intrusive based on everywhere you go.
According to researchers at Berkeley, 87% of apps shared user location data with third party services, often without clearly expressed user consent.
Further, a 2022 Consumer Reports study found major carriers selling subscriber location data at an alarming rate:
- AT&T – Over 1 million location data points sold per day
- Verizon – 687,000 locations per day
- T-Mobile – 537,000 user locations daily
This highlights the urgent need to limit location access to only necessary apps, review privacy policies more closely, and disable permissions when reasonably possible for better security.
Now let‘s examine another major reason to power down location services – squeezing more battery life from your iPhone!
Disable Location for Longer iPhone Battery Life
Frequent location checks in the background by multiple apps can drain your battery faster than almost any other iPhone capability.
As this battery usage chart illustrates, limiting location services provides one of the biggest opportunities to extend runtime before needing a recharge:
Chart showing background location checks responsible for significant battery drain percentage
Apps constantly polling your GPS coordinates, cell tower, and WiFi network connections sap a lot of power. Limiting location use allows your device to run cooler and more efficiently.
According to Apple, disabling location services can add up to 36 hours of extra standby time or up to 4 extra hours of internet use on a full charge. For heavy app users, that‘s an easy way to get significantly more use between charges!
Step-by-Step: How to Turn Off Location on iPhone
Now that you understand the main reasons you may want to disable location services, here are the simple steps to turn it off on your iPhone:
Completely Disable All Location Services
- Open the Settings app
- Tap Privacy & Security
- Choose Location Services
- Swipe the toggle switch from green (On) to gray (Off).
- A prompt will confirm disabling location
- Tap Turn Off to complete
With location fully disabled, no system services or apps will have access to your location until re-enabled.
Selectively Turn Off Location Per App
To only disable location access for certain apps rather than all apps:
- Go to Settings > Privacy & Security > Location Services
- Select desired app
- Choose location permission:
- Never – Completely disable location for the app
- Ask Next Time – Prompt each time app wants to access location
- While Using – Only allow location access when app open/in use
- Repeat for other apps as desired
Now specific apps have location disabled while leaving it functional for maps, weather etc. This balances privacy concerns against app usefulness on an app-by-app basis.
When You Might Want to Re-enable Location Services
Disabling location access obviously prevents apps from providing contextual information and recommendations based on your area. At some point down the road, you may wish to turn parts of location functionality back on.
Here are some scenarios where re-enabling location services may be beneficial:
- Planning a trip and needing precise maps navigation
- Missing localized recommendations from Yelp/TripAdvisor/Google
- Friends/family unable to view your location in Find My Friends
- Updating weather apps with forecasts for your exact area
- Ticketing/transportation apps needing live GPS access
- And more…
When the time comes, simply:
- Go back to Settings > Privacy & Security > Location Services
- Turn on the main switch to re-enable completely
- Or turn back on for specific apps as needed
Normal location functionality should be restored instantly for maps and weather, within a minute for ridesharing services, and up to 5 minutes for Find My Friends location sharing.
Takeaways – Controlling Your Location Privacy
Location services provide apps contextual understanding of your precise location for useful maps, recommendations and features. However, constant background tracking also poses privacy issues while draining your battery faster.
This guide covered key reasons you may want to disable location access – improving security, increasing iPhone battery life significantly, resolving app issues, or limiting access on a per app basis.
Following the step-by-step instructions, you can easily toggle location OFF and ON at any time based on your specific needs. Take control over location privacy today!
Do you limit app location access for privacy or battery life improvements? What other iPhone capability do you restrict for security and performance gains? Let me know in the comments!
