Comments on: Google Now for iOS bug is affecting battery life for some users [Updated]

By: James Rogers

James Rogers — Fri, 03 May 2013 03:02:00 +0000

FYI, Google has responded to reports of battery drain issues caused by Google Now. I have written a follow-up post on it here on the site.

By: James Rogers

James Rogers — Thu, 02 May 2013 13:29:00 +0000

In reply to Carlos Ribas. One more question, if you don't mind. As a developer, would you term the problem that Google Search and Google Now is creating as a bug, or just as a poor implementation of a feature? In other words, did Google intend for the app to work this way, but just not quite pull it off? Judging by the battery hits some users are reporting, the app has to be re-engaging the GPS in the background. Just curious. Thanks again for all the details.

By: James Rogers

James Rogers — Thu, 02 May 2013 01:42:00 +0000

In reply to Carlos Ribas.

Wow, Carlos. Thanks so much for the inside scoop on this issue. I actually wasn’t aware that you could have persistent location tracking for an app, outside of geofencing.

Now that you have explained the limitations of geofencing, I have a question for you. Would it be possible for Google to use it for time and directions for Home and Work? Google Now predefines those two locations for traffic and travel time reminders. Couldn’t they use geofences where you are at these locations to minimize battery drain, and then switch to persistent monitoring outside the fences.

Thank you again for sharing all this information.

By: Carlos Ribas

Carlos Ribas — Thu, 02 May 2013 01:35:00 +0000

In reply to Carlos Ribas.

“Pre-defined” and “abusing” not abiding. Stupid broken JavaScript won’t let me edit those typos out…

By: Carlos Ribas

Carlos Ribas — Thu, 02 May 2013 01:31:00 +0000

iOS developer here. The reason for the solid arrow is that Google Now is using significant location change monitoring. Only geofencing shows the hollow arrow. But, geofencing is for detecting arrival and departure from specific per-defined locations. Furthermore, apps are limited to approximately 10-20 geofence areas, and that’s from a shared pool. So if you have a lot of apps using fences, iOS will start dropping some fences. This is because fences are stored in firmware; Apple has dedicated hardware for this function in order to minimize battery drain. An app like Google needs to know where you are all the time. It isn’t looking for specific locations and it won’t work well if iOS flushes its fences. This precludes “abiding” fencing by registering tons of fences. If an app is holding a GPS active, the GPS will go inactive when you force quit the app. However, the arrow will remain even if you kill the app IF the app is using significant location monitoring. This is because apps registered for that monitoring will be background-launched when location changes. They are given a few seconds to perform whatever activity and then terminated by iOS again as needed. Thus, the arrow remains because the user needs to be aware that this app will still know their location if they force-quit it, due to that background launching by iOS. The arrow will not remain like that if the app is only using the GPS chip. However if the app is using both GPS chip and significant location, it is a little harder to know since the same arrow is displayed. iOS will terminate the GPS chip when you force-quit the app, though, and any lingering arrow is due to significant location monitoring. That said, it’s possible that the Google app will re-enable the GPS chip each time iOS background launches it due to a significant location change. In that case, the app would cause a bit more battery drain since it will run the GPS for some time periodically, even if you force-quit it. It would be helpful if iOS would further distinguish their arrow. Or, like I suggested via Radar bug tracker, they could simply use the hollow arrow for fencing AND significant location changes (cell tower and wifi). But, currently they are sharing the filled arrow and that leads to this ambiguity. Hope that helps!

By: James Rogers

James Rogers — Wed, 01 May 2013 19:11:00 +0000

In reply to Kevin Krause. If you notice a drop, just disable the Location Reporting in the app's settings. Google Now will still work then, it just won't keep the GPS on in the background.

By: Kevin Krause

Kevin Krause — Wed, 01 May 2013 19:07:00 +0000

It does concern me that my notification bar continually shows that location services are enabled since I installed the Google Now update, but I have noticed no extreme drop in battery life performance. Still hope Google can sort this out to allow us to change certain location options.

By: Emil

Emil — Wed, 01 May 2013 17:28:00 +0000

Thanks James. Please keep us posted.

By: James Rogers

James Rogers — Wed, 01 May 2013 17:13:00 +0000

Thanks for letting us know, Emil. I know a couple of others mentioned the same issue in my first post about Google Now for iOS. That’s why I dug around and found that there is evidence of a problem with the app, and wrote up this post.

By: Emil

Emil — Wed, 01 May 2013 17:03:00 +0000

I was having the same issue with Google Now. I disabled Location Services in Privacy settings for this app. It was draining my battery very quickly.