Reminders.App, GPS and Battery Life

[ericg301]

Has anyone else noticed that with location services enables in Reminders.app, GPS is activated in almost every built-in app? (purple arrow in status bar)?

Clock, settings, app store, calendar, safari -- everything but notes, stocks and voice memos? Why? Battery life is terrible with this.

I like the idea of geo-fence reminders, but not at the expense of battery life.

I'll continue to use Reminders are my tasks app for another couple days, but as of now I don't see any advantage over the numerous Gmail Task apps (like GoTasks)

Thoughts?

 

[nagromme]

Maybe something has been fixed since you posted, but I don’t have that problem. I have a geo-fence set, and I tried all those apps—no purple arrow. I’m thinking some other app in the background may be using the GPS (and draining battery) for you. For instance, if use my Navigon app to get voice directions, I can switch to other apps. While using them, Navigon is still guiding me (it will speak occasionally) so I see the purple arrow.

I’m not even sure Reminders shows the purple arrow at all... you’d think it would have to be shown 24/7, and then the icon becomes useless for seeing what other apps are doing.

Still, I'm curious if/how/when Reminders use the GPS for geo-fences. (Some speculation on the web is that it doesn’t: it only uses WiFi location; if so, that’s a problem out in the country, which I’ll test later. But certainly a way to save battery.)

Anyone know how Reminders works? How often it checks position, and how?

EDIT: now I do see the arrow—location services is always active in the background. (But there’s still a way to tell if other apps are using it too: check the Location Services list and it puts in icon by every app that has recently used it. Of course, they’re only ones that have previously asked permission.)

No battery loss, though—I think the WiFi only theory may be true. After all, it’s checking WiFi networks all the time anyway, if you have it set to ask to join new networks. Which never seemed to drain battery power.