Why is 'CLLocationManager.locationServicesEnabled()' true by default?

Question

I have noticed the following with a plain, completely new project in Xcode.

If, in the ViewController.swift file I import CoreLocation, and then in the viewDidLoad method I add...

print(CLLocationManager.locationServicesEnabled())

..., when the app runs in simulator Xcode prints out true. I would have thought that location services would be disabled by default, but as you can see for yourself, the opposite is true. If I wanted I could add some more code to gather location information about the user, and all this without ever having to ask for permission.

Can anybody explain why this is?

Answer 1

As far as I know, CLLocationManager.locationServicesEnabled() will return whether location Services are enabled on the device, not just for that one app. So even if location Services are disabled for that app, if they are enabled for the device, I think that will still return true, as per the documentation: https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/CoreLocation/Reference/CLLocationManager_Class/#//apple_ref/occ/clm/CLLocationManager/locationServicesEnabled

In my app, I set it up like this:

    //check if location services are enabled at all
    if CLLocationManager.locationServicesEnabled() {

        switch(CLLocationManager.authorizationStatus()) {
        //check if services disallowed for this app particularly
        case .Restricted, .Denied:
            print("No access")
            var accessAlert = UIAlertController(title: "Location Services Disabled", message: "You need to enable location services in settings.", preferredStyle: UIAlertControllerStyle.Alert)

            accessAlert.addAction(UIAlertAction(title: "Okay!", style: .Default, handler: { (action: UIAlertAction!) in UIApplication.sharedApplication().openURL(NSURL(string:UIApplicationOpenSettingsURLString)!)
            }))

            presentViewController(accessAlert, animated: true, completion: nil)

        //check if services are allowed for this app
        case .AuthorizedAlways, .AuthorizedWhenInUse:
            print("Access! We're good to go!")
        //check if we need to ask for access
        case .NotDetermined:
            print("asking for access...")
            manager.requestAlwaysAuthorization()
        }
    //location services are disabled on the device entirely!
    } else {
        print("Location services are not enabled")

    }

Good luck!