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Google Employee Claims Google Now App Does Not Cause Significant Battery Impact

I too believe Google--and full credit goes to Apple for Location Services being so efficient!

I've had Dark Sky using location services 24/7 for months (it warns me when it's about to rain via Push notification) and have never noticed any battery dropoff. There must be some, but trivial in my experience.

And if you have more than one app all using Location Services, Location Services is still just "running once." Kind of like Push: all apps share it with no cumulative constant battery drain.

I do wish the Location Services arrow in the status bar would distinguish between this kind of always-on locating vs. an app that is "using it right now in the foreground" (or however you'd say it). As it stands, the icon is meaningless for me, and I used to appreciate knowing when an app was locating me. (You can still look in Settings for a list of all apps tracking you now, and in the past 24 hours.) Maybe just add an option in Settings to "mute" the status icon for certain apps, allowing it to again have meaning for lesser-used apps. Or have an outlined vs. solid arrow. Something. iOS 7?
 
Could it be that the users experiencing poor battery performance are either in a low signal area and/or moving around rapidly? Wouldn't this cause faster battery drain?

Certainly my phone's battery life struggles when I'm using it on the train as a couple of my journeys are through low signal areas.

in low signal areas the phone is presumably constantly searching for the best cell and also working harder to fix a position if there aren't many around to triangulate from?

Happy to be told I'm wrong!
 
Amazing Iceman said:
UPDATE:
- I just enabled Location Services for the Google app, and immediately the Location Services showed on the top bar (Google app is not open)
- I restarted my iPad and Location Services didn't show anymore.
- I ran the Google app, and the Location Services icon appeared again, and remained showing even after I closed the Google app. It's been about 5 minutes and it's still showing. The only two options is to restart the iPad or turn off Location Services for the Google app.

All I can say is that it's definitely a bug in the Google app. It must leave a process running in the background, causing this problem.
Click to expand...

Good job. Not a bug or a problem.
 
Based on the description from the Google Engineer the app uses Core Location's "Significant Location Change Notification." This is a very battery efficient API to Core Location that triggers a location event whenever your phone sees a new cell phone tower or new wifi hotspot. It does not use GPS, which is what most apps use to track location in the background causing a significant loss in battery.

The location icon is enabled when generating significant change location notifications because according to Apple Engineers at WWDC, "Knowing your device hasn't significantly changed locations is still tracking the device's location, and the purpose of that icon is to tell users when an app knows about their location". So even though it doesn't follow you with the GPS, a user should see the indicator because the app "knows" where they are—or rather, where they aren't.

So it's not continually tracking your location and draining your battery, it only triggers an event if the phone automatically connects to a new tower. Thus, no extra battery loss. The only way I could see a battery hit is if you were in a low signal area that was constantly changing towers.

According to the API reference it will generate a notification every 500 meters or so, with at least 5 mins between each notification

https://developer.apple.com/library....html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40007125-CH3-SW43
 
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C DM said:
Or you could simply go into the options within the Google app settings and disable the background location setting there (so the app can still use location when needed, but won't do it "continuously" in the background).
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No you can't, it's not an option. You have to do it in Loction Services.
 
Small White Car said:
I believe what Google says. Mainly because the complaints I saw popped up mere minutes after the app launched.

Those aren't battery complaints. Those are "I see an arrow" complaints. Real battery assessment takes days.

I've had many other apps that use geofencing (like Apple's own Reminders) without seeing a huge impact on battery. I'm sure this Google Now service works the same way.
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Moccasin said:
Could it be that the users experiencing poor battery performance are either in a low signal area and/or moving around rapidly? Wouldn't this cause faster battery drain?

Certainly my phone's battery life struggles when I'm using it on the train as a couple of my journeys are through low signal areas.

in low signal areas the phone is presumably constantly searching for the best cell and also working harder to fix a position if there aren't many around to triangulate from?

Happy to be told I'm wrong!
Click to expand...


Google is at fault. For the last few months, during the week I travel to work and then home. I unplug my iPhone at 6.30 after an overnight charge. By the time I get home at 19.00 or so. I have never been on less than 20% 3 days of running google app since the google now update, my phone has run out of power around 16.30. Last night I roved the app. Today at 19.00 I was back to 20%.

The only change was updating the google app. Removing the app removes the problem. Nothing to do with poor signal area as my commute to work is the exact same route daily.
 
It's not really a bug or anything, it's mostly by design--for some functionality it needs access to location services in the background. However it doesn't mean the location services are running all the time in full power mode simply because the the location services arrow is there all the time.

That said, you can access the options in the app itself and in the privacy section disable the location reporting setting, which will disable this "background" location process for the app.
 
Whether or not it's draining battery, Google is likely using this always-on location to track where you go and add it to their existing profile of you.
 
What drains your battery the most besides Location Services, is leaving WiFi on while on the road. Also, the lower the WiFi signal, the more power the phone uses to try to connect to it.
This problem is more noticeable in crowded cities with private/public WiFi APs everywhere, including buses and some other vehicles.
 
I was concerned due to seeing that dreaded arrow on constantly, but I thought I'd give it a chance, and actually I've seen no appreciable drain. But then again, I'm at work all day connected to WiFi, and have a 15 min commute.

So, those of you who are active and out and about and not connected to WiFi will likely see a different result.

Try it before you diss it.

----------

By the way, you can turn off constant tracking and still use Google Now:

Google app > Settings > Privacy > Location Reporting OFF
 
The engineer can believe what they like, but would kill my battery dead in less than two hours while stationary at the rate it drains while enabled.
 
Aww, I liked making people think Google was draining their iPhone batteries. I use the app myself and was smart enough to know better, but it was funny watching people get mad at this (it still is).

This is also why Apple tends to hide some stuff from people, because the more they are aware of (like the location icon) the more they come up with uninformed answers to explain it.
 
nagromme said:
I do wish the Location Services arrow in the status bar would distinguish between this kind of always-on locating vs. an app that is "using it right now in the foreground" (or however you'd say it). As it stands, the icon is meaningless for me, and I used to appreciate knowing when an app was locating me. (You can still look in Settings for a list of all apps tracking you now, and in the past 24 hours.) Maybe just add an option in Settings to "mute" the status icon for certain apps, allowing it to again have meaning for lesser-used apps. Or have an outlined vs. solid arrow. Something. iOS 7?
Click to expand...

this would be nice indeed :)
 
dagamer34 said:
What confuses me is don't background services use a hollow icon?
Click to expand...

No, the outlined arrow is for geofence monitoring. This is a kind of background location monitoring, but significant location change uses the solid icon
 
barkomatic said:
I haven't noticed my battery life changing at all. I think people that claim it's draining their battery have something else going on.
Click to expand...

maybe but the same day i downloaded and launched google now is the first day i ever ran out of juice before i got home (i usually get home with 40% battery to spare) but i only noticed the gps icon the next day so disabled the gps. so far so good today. seems like more than a coincidence to me.
 
I tried it with location reporting on for a full day and didn't notice any significant battery drain compared to having it turned off. That was just a one day experiment for myself. My life isn't exciting enough for me to take advantage of the few extras you can benefit from while it's active all of the time.

I'm fine with it activating location services when the app is opened and then turning off when closed.
 
I think you all know the caption for this one.

16212.jpg
 
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