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Aaron Parecki

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  • Frequent Locations API in iOS 8

    June 3, 2014

    Since the launch of iOS 7, your iPhone has been collecting a list of "frequent locations" as you move around. If you don't already know about this, you can check out your list in the Settings app.

    Navigate to Settings → Privacy → Location Services → System Services → Frequent Locations.

    Below are some screenshots from the data collected by my phone.

    iOS Frequent Locations

    The phone builds up a list of cities you've visited, and clicking on one reveals a list of all the places you've visited within that city. It was able to show my "Home" and "Work" locations by name even though I've never entered the addresses. There are a few other named locations, like the Portland Airport in my case. The reverse-geocoded addresses are certainly not exact. Clicking on any of these places shows a list of all the times I've visited those locations in the past, including the time I arrived and left!

    When this launched in iOS 7 the fall, I was somewhat surprised that there was no mention of it in the developer API docs. I would have expected a corresponding update to the CoreLocation APIs to make this data accessible to apps. It looks as though iOS 8 will make this available to developers now!

    In addition to location services being able to get data from GPS or region monitoring, CoreLocation will be able to send location updates to apps after the user has "visited" a location. The new "CLVisit" event may include an arrival date and departure date in addition to the location.

    This along with the changes so that CLLocation may include a CLFloor object indicating what level of a building someone is on opens up a lot of possibilities for new apps!

    Tue, Jun 3, 2014 5:00pm -07:00 #apple #ios8 #location #gps #wwdc14
    11 likes 5 reposts 6 replies
    • Patrick Chinn
    • Anima Sarah LaVoy
    • Nathaniel Goldman
    • Tracy Rolling
    • Martin Hausmann
    • Nick Doty
    • Alex Kawas
    • Roman S Frillarte
    • Daniel Reeves
    • Brian Hendrickson
    • Amber Case
    • Larry Cao
    • Robert Yocum
    • Joshua Northcott
    • Martin Hausmann
    • MomentFeed
    • Anselm Hook facebook.com/594221538
      Spoiler alert http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PNWVxTAsHD4
      Wed, Jun 4, 2014 1:17am +00:00 (via brid-gy.appspot.com)
    • Anselm Hook facebook.com/594221538
      sometimes the intense socializing requires superpowers
      Wed, Jun 4, 2014 1:14am +00:00 (via brid-gy.appspot.com)
    • Alex Kawas facebook.com/3324802
      Anselm, I just saw you teleport on 4sq...
      Wed, Jun 4, 2014 1:14am +00:00 (via brid-gy.appspot.com)
    • Anselm Hook facebook.com/594221538
      Nice! Now it is even easier to track Alex
      Wed, Jun 4, 2014 1:11am +00:00 (via brid-gy.appspot.com)
    • Alex Kawas facebook.com/3324802
      So that's what that does. I disabled it the moment I got the phone.
      Wed, Jun 4, 2014 12:41am +00:00 (via brid-gy.appspot.com)
    • Ben Werdmüller werd.io/profile/benwerd
      I'm trying to decide if I think this is cool, or completely out-of-bounds creepy.
      Mind you, my Nexus is very obviously collecting the same information, because it's revealed in various ways in Google Now. Being able to access it on a platform level is at least more flexible and open than surfacing it through Google's cloud through their own apps.
      Wed, Jun 4, 2014 12:15am +00:00
Posted in /articles

Hi, I'm Aaron Parecki, Director of Identity Standards at Okta, and co-founder of IndieWebCamp. I maintain oauth.net, write and consult about OAuth, and participate in the OAuth Working Group at the IETF. I also help people learn about video production and livestreaming. (detailed bio)

I've been tracking my location since 2008 and I wrote 100 songs in 100 days. I've spoken at conferences around the world about owning your data, OAuth, quantified self, and explained why R is a vowel. Read more.

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