Hacker News Reader

Comment by jc4p | Hacker News Reader

I'm with you on this. I don't get why Apple can't mandate a "Only when in app" option. The description for why they require it says they use the location while in app or for a few minutes after the trip is over.

When I was getting ready to leave for work today, I got out of the shower and grabbed my phone and saw a alert saying Uber has been using my location in the background. I hadn't opened the app since last week, last time I needed a ride. I'm sure it could've just been an errant push notification coming in late and waking the app up in the background, but I'm spooked.

View on HN

That popup is standard for any app that is approved to potentially use location in background and you don't use often. I think it's meant to discourage apps to ask location in background altogether

The pop-up that says "Uber has been using your location in the background recently"? I don't think this is true.

I think the pop-up is telling me it was using my GPS, especially since the GPS icon on the Settings page where you can retract the permissions was lit up to indicate "Recently used".

I don't want to jump to conspiracy theories but the experience scared me a bit because it was around the exact same time of day I had grabbed an Uber to go to work the last time I had used it.

Perhaps it was an errant random notification meant to scare me, perhaps it was a late delivered push notification opening Uber in the background, perhaps it was Uber seeing if I was home and wanted to commute to work again.

When they migrated to this style of permission it seemed like a bit of a missed opportunity to give the user the option of choosing "no, only when the app is open"

Uber removed the "only when open" ability unfortunately, so that would not be relevant here.

No, I mean Apple shouldnt have given app developers the option to not allow "only when open". So app developers request the highest amount of permission, and either that (or less) would be granted:

    Uber would like to access your location at all times

              [Yes, allow in the background]
                   [Yes, only when open]

                  [No, deny all together]

Reply on news.ycombinator.com