Comments on: iPhone Pet Peeves: Why Does Every App & Its Brother Need to Know My Location?

By: patrickj

patrickj — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 15:42:59 +0000

Guys – I'm not saying I want to keep my location secret from any apps. I'm very happy providing my location as long as it's in as sensible, non-intrusive (or huge PITA) way. I'd happily tick Yes to a checkbox in the App Store / iTunes that said something like 'You OK revealing your location on each iTunes purchase' – and then it would be done & dusted for me each time. Or providing it one time on first launch of each app. Or providing it manually for each app via the app's settings.

All those ways would be fine with me. I don't want to prevent Brandon from knowing I'm in Austin, not Italy. But … I don't want his app to ask me it *every* single time I launch it, while never giving me a way to set it once and forget it. And I definitely don't need apps telling me they *must* use Location Services to keep track of me when they have little or no purpose in doing so – I don't see how that one ties into analytics and such – unless you need to know that I bought your app in Austin, but I often travel to Fort Worth – not sure what great strategic / analytical benefit that brings …

By: iphonedocked

iphonedocked — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 03:55:40 +0000

One word, Analytics

By: cellobarney

cellobarney — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 01:44:58 +0000

My favorite apps are the ones where I am the one asking for my location–see GPS Kit and the like. 🙂 Yay for geocaching!

By: brandon

brandon — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 01:43:06 +0000

Noted. Patrick hates location services....

As Darren said - in some cases people are using it for good reason that you may not see. And while I agree that "Opt Out" should be an option, let's be honest most people are instantly going to opt out and not even look at what they're opting out of.

Pinch for example collects data from the app and then gives statistics based on that info. So ... I know with gCalWall I have a decent number of users in Italy, but a much larger number in the States. If I was to start working on localization I know I need to focus on Italian first since they're the second largest user base.

If I did an "Opt Out" by default there's no way I'd know this aside from combing through sales reports that are terrible.

However, that said - you should be able to say no and not have the app shart all over itself.

By: patrickj

patrickj — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 23:26:04 +0000

Darren – thanks, I really hadn't thought about that – but I have to say my initial reaction is still no thanks. At the very least, this should be an opt-in sort of feature. If I don't want to participate in that type of data collection, and in fact it annoys the crap out of me to be pestered about it, it should be easy to turn off for good (no more prompt every time I launch app etc.).

If an app did this, or similar, on the desktop its life expectancy would be very short as well …

By: Darren Govey

Darren Govey — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 23:19:05 +0000

Apps often use location services as part of collection of metrics about the use of the app. 3rd parties such as Pinch Media provide libraries for collecting metrics and the default is that the location services are used. These metrics allow the developer to get feedback on how often their app is used, how long for, how long users spend in certain parts of the app code, and even the demographic of the users (via iTunes aggregated data)