Apple’s iOS 14 makes it much more difficult for apps to track you

Hidden amongst the many announcements Apple made at its Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) today, was a slew of privacy features that will make life really difficult for advertisers. The new privacy features include ways to stop app makers from tracking your precise location, to telling you exactly what data they have on you and what they use to track you.

For instance, with iOS 14, iPhone users will be able to stop every app from getting their precise location. The rationale seems to be that apps really only need your approximate locations in order to show you ads, make recommendations etc. So, your precise location needn’t be shared. For instance, a social network might be able to use your approximate location to tell you what stores are nearby. But it doesn’t need to know your exact GPS coordinates to do the same. The level of approximation here isn’t known at this point though.

The company had set limitations to last year’s iOS update too, by allowing users to choose to give location access to apps only when they need such access, instead of allowing location access continuously or when an app is in use.