60 MACWORLD AUGUST 2021
iOSCENTRAL i PHONE USES TRACKING TO ENHANCE APPSpeople’s houses, medical offices, and the
like. These are called Significant Locations,
and you can find the list buried deeply at
Settings → Privacy → Location Services →
System Services → Significant Locations
under My Places and History.
Before you start to fret, Apple doesn’t
collect and use that information centrally. (I
mean, it’s not Google.) Apple says it keeps
the information only on your devices and
uses end-to-end encryption (as it does with
Messages, iCloud Keychain, and several
other services) to sync these locations
across your devices. Apple’s disclosure
says it uses Significant Locations to provide
better cues and results in Maps (predictive
traffic routing), Calendar (recurring
appointment suggestions), Photos
(Memories), and for other purposes.
Apple said recently, too, that it uses
Significant Locations to alert you if
Significant
Locations
captures
places you’ve
been that iOS
and iPadOS
think are
useful for
providing
other kinds of
information.If you are
concerned about
being tracked,
turning it off
won’t affect your
overall Maps
experience.there’s an AirTag location tracker
traveling with you from place to place:
When you arrive at a Significant
Location, you receive an alert about the
tracker and you can try to figure out
what’s going on. (You’re also alerted at
the end of the day if you don’t hit any
Significant Location or your Home, which
is also defined in the Me card in
Contacts, by day’s end.)
If you dislike the notion that your
device is tracking places you go to
frequently, you can switch the Significant
Locations option off, and it won’t degrade
your general experience.
You can also swipe left on any location
and tap Delete to remove it, or wipe the
whole set of locations by tapping Clear
History and confirming. ■