Issue with GPS icon while using "Location Significant Change" and user perception

Question

I developed an application that uses "Location Significant Change" feature. I notice that after users download my app, they quickly tend to uninstall it because they see the white GPS icon on their iPhone, and they think it will drain their phone battery.

I wonder if there is any workaround or suggestion, I wonder also if Apple is going to do anything about the GPS icon when using "Location Significant Change" feature, either on iOS 6 or next versions.

on comparison Android have a feature where you could setup Alarm manager to wake up application on certain time intervals. This will solve the problem, is there something similar on iOS (or iOS 6 maybe).

Thanks.

Answer 1

This is going to be a non-negotiable aspect to using location services on an iOS device. Apple wants to inform users when their location is being used so they can make informed decisions. So overriding or hiding this location icon, is not going to happen. (jailbreak excluded)

In my opinion, you have a couple options to help yourself out.

• Inform the users in your app description in the app store so they know up front that the battery life isn't going to be slammed that bad.
• Have a good detailed message set when you ask for permission to use the user's location. This will let them know why and make sure they accept and allow it.
• If you have an FAQ on your website or inside the app, make sure you detail what the icon means and reassure the user that Apple takes battery life very seriously, and so do you.

Outside that, there isn't a lot you can do. Just inform your users best you can and go from there. Good luck.

UPDATE

I found a setting in iOS 6 under Privacy-->Location Services-->System Services all the way at the bottom, there is a user setting to hide the stats bar icon. This frees up some status bar real estate for users that don't want to see it. It doesn't mean the app isn't using location, just the icon is hidden. This is something your users would have to do as overriding this is not an option. At least it is something to share with your users.

Answer 2

Note that the location arrow when using significant location changes is different from the one when you are actively using location services in the background. The best thing you can do is to make sure the user understand how is their location being used, and to teach them to identify the difference between location monitoring (like geofence and significant location changes) and location tracking.