Also my phone has been warm to the touch all day. I want all the features of the Google Now, but I don't want to turn off location services to help with the battery life. Any suggestions?
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Google Now is draining the crap out of my iPhone 5
- Thread starter saintforlife
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If I turn off locations services for Google Now, it says "To use Google Now, you need to turn on Location Services". When I have the locations services turned off, it doesn't even show any cards which defeats the purpose of Google Now in my opinion.
Yep, Right there with you. Had to uninstall the app. I like the idea, but I can't have GPS on the entire time.
Once you sign in and activate Google Now tap the gear to go to Google Search settings. Go to Privacy, scroll down and turn off Location Reporting. From now on it will use location services but only when the app is open.
Like someone above said, turn off Location Reporting. It doesn't make a difference if Now can't use your location in the background, since the app doesn't support push notifications.
Thanks for that.
Convoluted! There's going to be a lot of folks that don't know why their phone is draining.
You're welcome. I didn't discover this setting but it's worth sharing. Judging by the thread about this in the News Discussion forum you're correct about people upset about battery drain.
A member named akac mentioned an interesting bit of info about location services. This person is thinks that Google may be using Significant Location Change version of location services.
Have a look at the post if you're interested. https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/17209282/
Even though Google is claiming "minimal impact on battery life", they're going to have to do something different. Plenty of users, not just advanced ones, will notice the GPS icon being on all the time and realize that something is not as it was before.
It's still available. I just found it in the store. Search for Google Search.
Seems as though I'm one of the only people that hasn't noticed any real effect on battery life, despite having the GPS icon displayed all day. I was a little nervous at first but like I said I haven't noticed a difference.
I'm using a 4s, but not sure if that would make any difference.
I may be wrong, but from my understanding I would think that disabling location reporting would cripple parts of the service? Eg. What time I leave for work etc.
I'm using a 4s, but not sure if that would make any difference.
I may be wrong, but from my understanding I would think that disabling location reporting would cripple parts of the service? Eg. What time I leave for work etc.
Given google now drained the crap out of both my HTC One and my Galaxy S4 I'm guessing it's a hidden feature
But yeah it's polling constantly for your location so it's bound to affect the battery.
Yep just installed it and my iPhone 4 got nice and warm. The location services were on full time, even when I stopped the app! I had to delete it to get the GPS to stop.
iPhone 4S here, kept Location Reporting on all day and couldn't tell any difference in battery usage from what I'm used to.
Google Now was definitely operating, too - whenever I unlocked the phone to Google Search, it had information relevant to my location (weather, nearby public transportation info, photo spot, even a restaurant recommendation).
What's interesting is that there are very few location updates to my Google Location History (http://maps.google.com/locationhistory). It definitely hasn't recorded every location I confirmed up-to-date Google Now data at, which I thought it would do because Location History is supposed to be your one-stop-shop for all location data Google has on you.
Based on my experience it certainly seems like they're using iOS' Significant Location Change feature rather than full-on GPS all the time. Couldn't say why some are seeing massive battery use and feeling their phones heat up.
Google Now was definitely operating, too - whenever I unlocked the phone to Google Search, it had information relevant to my location (weather, nearby public transportation info, photo spot, even a restaurant recommendation).
What's interesting is that there are very few location updates to my Google Location History (http://maps.google.com/locationhistory). It definitely hasn't recorded every location I confirmed up-to-date Google Now data at, which I thought it would do because Location History is supposed to be your one-stop-shop for all location data Google has on you.
Based on my experience it certainly seems like they're using iOS' Significant Location Change feature rather than full-on GPS all the time. Couldn't say why some are seeing massive battery use and feeling their phones heat up.
I noticed my GPS pointer on after updating the google app. I am unable to get it off now even after deleting the google app I still have the GPS pointer at the top however it is an outline instead of solid. I have checked and have no apps running or any location based reminders set anotherwards the pointer should be off. I noticed with the google app and google now turned on the pointer was solid and with google now off it was outlined but never went away. In the past I would se it pop up for a few seconds when I brought the phone out of sleep then go away but now it's stuck there even with googl search deleted. Whats going on?
