Background location not enabled..?

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#1

To use background location you must enable “Always” in Location services settings.
What does this do? Apart from putting an annoying banner on my screen. Seems to still work.
Why can it not operate when in the “When using the app” setting? I don’t want location access operating always.
IOS 15

#2

We used to get many complaints about the app giving the wrong fix or being slow to find a fix when the app was brought to the foreground (walking a line, app opened every 5 minutes.) Invariably it was because people had disabled background geolocation.

At the time we decided to make it compulsory and use an ultra efficient method to stop battery usage, it is the lesser evil and what you are seeing now. We don’t get those slow fix complaints anymore.

The assumption was people would simply close the app when not using it - a poor assumption.

Agreed it could be handled a little more elegantly than it is now. We’ll take a look.

#3

being slow to find a fix when the app was brought to the foreground
(walking a line, app opened every 5 minutes.)
In my experience this happens often enough to be annoying, even with the background geolocation enabled.

The problem I have is not so much the slow fix, but not knowing whether the fix displayed is current or stale. If I know it’s stale, then I don’t mind waiting for an updated fix. But if I don’t know, I can’t decide whether I can trust the current position unless I wait. This makes the app rather frustrating to use for navigation purposes - e.g. deciding whether I have overshot the trap I’m looking for.

Could I request that the current location glyph change colour based on how long ago the position was determined? If more than say 2 minutes old it could be displayed in gray, for example. Alternatively, you could display a “ring of uncertainty” around the central point (say based on normal walking speed since the time of the last location fix).

Thanks, Dave

#4

Thanks for those Dave, and yes I know what you mean. We have a few upgrades around that in mind, gps confidence ring, north indicator…

In the mean time a few things that aren’t obvious but which might help:

  1. Tap the centre button to force a fix request, i.e. don’t wait
  2. Press and hold the centre button to force a fix and zoom to the centre.
  3. Turn on auto-centering in the Menu > Settings > Map options

A combination of #1 and #2 is how I work.

Andy