Your ultimate guide to Location Services on your iPad

One great feature about iOS devices or even android smartphones is that feature called Location Services. In an iPad Location Services helps you know where you are at the moment. Also when you asks Maps for directions to somewhere, it has a clue where you’re starting from even telling you the exact distance. Same when you use a social media site like Facebook  like it will tell you where you were in a particular restaurant when you snapped that photo of your food. That shows the number of things you can do with Location and how it helps you all times.

Though Apple devices are secure and Apple does not pass your data anywhere one thing that affects using Location service is the battery life of an iPad. So if your iPad is constantly finding where it is in location service that means it is constantly working and that means constantly drawing power. It’s less than this all sounds, and you can switch it all off later or selectively limit some apps from using it if it becomes a problem.

Switching on Location Services

Location based services are very helpful in predicting your needs and preparing you for upcoming events.  However they can also become intrusive if given too much access–it just depends on what your expectations are and how informed you are from the beginning.  Here is the guide to all what you need to understand about location services on your iPad.

To configure your own Location Services on your iPad start by opening the Settings App- Privacy- Location Services.  If not already on, slide the tab over to activate.  Location services use Bluetooth and crowd sourced Wi-fi locations to determine your location, so obviously these settings need to be turned on as well to best determine your location.

Sharing your location with other members of your Family and friends in Messages and Find My Friends

For this option you can select which one of your available devices you’d like to share your location from.  By enabling Location Services on you iPad, you are essentially granting consent to having your info transmitted, collection, maintenance, and processed by Apple and its partners.  Rest assured-all data is anonymous and Apple will not share or sell your data with outside agencies.

Granting Individual Apps Permission

As you progress through and grant different apps permission to use your location, they appear in a running list on the main Location Services page.  Its at this page where you can adjust when each app uses you location.  Options range from While Using, Always and Never.  These can be adjusted as often as you like at anytime you choose.

In addition, an arrow will appear next to the app in the list to indicate when your location was most recently used.

• A purple icon (arrow) indicates that your location was recently used
• A gray icon indicates that your location was used within the last 24 hours
• An outlined purple icon will indicate that an app is currently using a a geofence ( a virtual perimeter around a location used to notify you when you arrive or leave a location)

You can also configure a variety of System Services that use location services to collect information.  They include the Compass, Find-My-iPad, Alerts, iAds, Time Zone, Share My Location, Spotlight suggestions, Wi-Fi Networking, and Frequent Locations.  This is also a very good place to start when you are looking to improve your battery life as you will be able to monitor usage.

Some apps will ask to use your location only while the app is in use like the Uber App. An app is considered “in use” when you’re actively using it in the foreground, or when it’s in use in the background, which the status bar will indicate.

Other apps will ask for access to your location even when the app isn’t in use. When you allow an app to always use your location, iOS will remind you which apps are able to use your location after an app uses your location in the background.

Turn Location Services on or off

You can turn Location Services on or off at Settings > Privacy > Location Services. You can turn Location Services on either during the Setup Assistant process or later through the Location Services setting. You can individually control which apps and system services have access to Location Services data. When Location Services are off, apps can’t use your location in the foreground or background. This will limit the performance of various Apple and third-party apps.

Reset or disable Location Services

Location warnings are the requests that apps (such as Camera, Compass, and Maps as well as location-based third-party apps) make to use Location Services with those apps. An app will ask for permission the first time it needs to access Location Services data. Tapping Allow will give that app permission to use Location Services as needed. Tapping Don’t Allow will prevent an app from accessing Location Services data. Apps won’t use your location until they have asked for your permission and you grant permission.

If you would like to reset all of your location settings to the factory default, go to Settings > General > Reset and tap Reset Location & Privacy. When your location and privacy settings are reset, apps will stop using your location until you grant them permission.

Improve GPS accuracy

GPS accuracy depends on the number of visible GPS satellites. Locating all visible satellites can take several minutes, with accuracy gradually increasing over time. To improve GPS accuracy:
Make sure that you’ve set the date, time, and time zone correctly on the device in Settings > General > Date & Time. If possible, use Set Automatically.

Keep a clear view in several directions. Walls, vehicle roofs, tall buildings, mountains, and other obstructions can block line of sight to GPS satellites. When this happens, your device uses Wi-Fi or cellular networks to determine your position until the GPS satellites are visible again.

Crowd-sourced Wi-Fi and cellular Location Services

If Location Services is on, your device will periodically send the geo-tagged locations of nearby Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers to Apple to augment Apple’s crowd-sourced database of Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower locations. If you’re 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 to Apple to be used for building up Apple’s crowd-sourced road-traffic database. The crowd-sourced location data gathered by Apple is anonymous and encrypted. It doesn’t personally identify you.

For safety purposes, your iPad location information may be used when you place an emergency call to aid response efforts regardless of whether you enable Location Services.

About Location Services and Privacy

As said above with your permission, Location Services allows Apple and third-party apps and websites to use information based on the current location of your iPad to provide a variety of location-based services. Location Services uses GPS, Bluetooth, crowd-sourced Wi-Fi hotspot, and cellular towers to determine the location of your device.

If Location Services is on, your iPad will periodically send Apple the geo-tagged locations of nearby Wi-Fi hotspots and cellular towers in an anonymous and encrypted form. This information is used for augmenting this crowd-sourced database of Wi-Fi hotspot and cellular tower locations. By enabling Location Services, these location-based system services are enabled:

• Traffic: As earlier said above if you are physically moving (for example, traveling in a car), your iPad will periodically send GPS locations and travel speed information in an anonymous and encrypted form to Apple, to be used for augmenting a crowd-sourced road traffic database.
• Popular Near Me: Your iPad will periodically send locations of when and where you have purchased or used apps in an anonymous and encrypted form to Apple to improve a crowd-sourced database. This database may be used to offer geographically relevant apps and other Apple products and services.
• Frequent Locations: To learn places that are significant to you, your iOS device will keep track of places you’ve recently been, as well as how often and when you visited them. This data is kept solely on your device and won’t be sent to Apple without your consent. It will be used to provide you with personalized services, such as predictive traffic routing.
• Location-Based Apple Ads: Your iPadwill send your location, including travel speed and direction, to Apple to provide you with geographically relevant Apple Ads.
• Location-Based Suggestions: When you use Spotlight suggestions or Safari suggestions, the location of your iPad at the time you open Spotlight, use Look Up, or submit a search query to Spotlight or Safari will be sent to Apple to make location-based suggestions more relevant and to improve other Apple products and services. If you turn off Location Services for location-based suggestions, your precise location will not be sent to Apple. To deliver relevant search suggestions and news, Apple may use the IP address of your internet connection to approximate your location by matching it to a geographic region.
• Location-Based Alerts: Your iPad will use your location in order to provide you with geographically-relevant alerts, such as a reminder to call someone when you get to a specific place, when to leave for your next appointment, or an app recommendation based on where you currently are.
• Share My Location: You can choose to share your current location with others, on a temporary or ongoing basis, from within certain apps such as Messages and Find My Friends.
• HomeKit: Your iPad will use your location to enable accessories to turn on or off when you arrive or leave a specific location, such as turning on your lights when you get home.

The crowd-sourced location data gathered by Apple doesn’t personally identify you. By enabling Location Services for your devices, you agree and consent to the transmission, collection, maintenance, processing, and use of your location data and location search queries by Apple, its partners, and licensees to provide and improve location-based and road traffic-based products and services.

You may choose to disable Location Services at any time. If you allow third-party apps or websites to use your current location, you are subject to their terms and privacy policy and practices. You should review the terms, privacy policies, and practices of such apps and websites to understand how they use your location and other information.