I’m guessing there are two settings that may be important here. One is the Background App Refresh and the other is the Location setting for the app. I seem to not be getting consistent results but I’m not sure and I’m wondering if someone can give me a more precise detail of how things should work.
One an app call Camera Connect, it has the ability to update the GPS location as I walk around taking photos. On the outing a few days ago, the Location was set to “While Using the App” and the result was all my photos were tagged with the location of my car — the point at which I started the app. Today I switched it to “Always” and got much better results although I believe it could have been a little better. It seemed to clump photos together within the same exact spot even though I had move a little bit between shots.
And, a similar experience today with an app called GPX Tracker (an open source app). I had it set to “While using the app” and the track log that it recorded had only five points which I believe was the brief time I took while saving the log file at the end of my outing. So the previous hour or so was not recorded. Tomorrow I plan to test it with the setting set to “Always” and see how it goes.
The counter example is an app called eBird. Today in particular I started it and did not look at my phone again during the whole outing. Maybe… it was the foreground app (is that the right term?) but I would rather doubt it. It also creates a track although for some reason they don’t add time stamps. But its track showed the complete path I had taken during the outing. Its Location settings was set to “While Using the App”… (at least I think so… I need to be more precise in my experimentation. I just didn’t expect things to be this weird.)
I try to keep Background App Refresh off for apps unless I can think of a good reason to turn it on. I’m assuming that will save a little bit of battery — perhaps not. But for the three apps just mentioned, I have it enabled. Again… I think I did. I’m never 100% sure of anthing unless I take contemporaneous notes which I didn’t do but I will in the future.
So really the big question I have is, about the Location setting. What exactly does “While Using the App” mean? The app is launched and is the app shown on the screen or does “using the app” simply mean the app has been launched?
Also… in the same quest: did Apple change how these things work with iOS 26 because I’ve been using Camera Connect in particular for a long time and I only just now noticed these issues. Likewise, I’ve used Gaia GPS for a very long time and it has been able to create a track even though it was not the active app on the screen and the Location being set to “While Using the App”.
One an app call Camera Connect, it has the ability to update the GPS location as I walk around taking photos. On the outing a few days ago, the Location was set to “While Using the App” and the result was all my photos were tagged with the location of my car — the point at which I started the app. Today I switched it to “Always” and got much better results although I believe it could have been a little better. It seemed to clump photos together within the same exact spot even though I had move a little bit between shots.
And, a similar experience today with an app called GPX Tracker (an open source app). I had it set to “While using the app” and the track log that it recorded had only five points which I believe was the brief time I took while saving the log file at the end of my outing. So the previous hour or so was not recorded. Tomorrow I plan to test it with the setting set to “Always” and see how it goes.
The counter example is an app called eBird. Today in particular I started it and did not look at my phone again during the whole outing. Maybe… it was the foreground app (is that the right term?) but I would rather doubt it. It also creates a track although for some reason they don’t add time stamps. But its track showed the complete path I had taken during the outing. Its Location settings was set to “While Using the App”… (at least I think so… I need to be more precise in my experimentation. I just didn’t expect things to be this weird.)
I try to keep Background App Refresh off for apps unless I can think of a good reason to turn it on. I’m assuming that will save a little bit of battery — perhaps not. But for the three apps just mentioned, I have it enabled. Again… I think I did. I’m never 100% sure of anthing unless I take contemporaneous notes which I didn’t do but I will in the future.
So really the big question I have is, about the Location setting. What exactly does “While Using the App” mean? The app is launched and is the app shown on the screen or does “using the app” simply mean the app has been launched?
Also… in the same quest: did Apple change how these things work with iOS 26 because I’ve been using Camera Connect in particular for a long time and I only just now noticed these issues. Likewise, I’ve used Gaia GPS for a very long time and it has been able to create a track even though it was not the active app on the screen and the Location being set to “While Using the App”.
