<story><title>Google, You Creepy Sonofabitch</title><url>http://bradfrost.com/blog/post/google-you-creepy-sonofabitch/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>turc1656</author><text>Serious question for the HN community - why do you leave your GPS on&amp;#x2F;activated by default?  I have mine disabled unless I specifically need it for something, which is rare.  Usually the only time I ever need GPS is for driving instructions.  Otherwise, it&amp;#x27;s off.  GPS is also the biggest battery hog on the device.  Why would you leave this on?  Do you all use it far more frequently or was it something you never thought to shut off?  I can&amp;#x27;t think of one app I use that requires my location other than weather, in which case I just set the location(s) I want and can refresh at any time.  But I generally get weather from a saved DuckDuckGo search - &amp;quot;[zipcode] weather&amp;quot; - stored as a bookmark and problem solved.&lt;p&gt;On a related note, Google has created a tool that allows you to see all the data they have on you (and delete it if you want).  Because of the way I set up everything and my habits, they had virtually nothing on me.  The only stuff I think were some chats from years and years ago and a few searches I did while not in incognito mode on my phone.  I also don&amp;#x27;t use any of their apps from their main product suite - no search, email, chat, drive, etc.  And I never leave myself logged in to my account on anything.  I don&amp;#x27;t think this reduces my productivity or quality of life at all.  In fact, quality of life is almost certainly improved.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jdietrich</author><text>Hot location fixes are much faster than warm fixes, even with aGPS. Turning GPS off usually causes a substantial delay before you can start using a location-dependent app or feature, plus the manual effort of turning GPS back on. The delay is far greater if you&amp;#x27;re in an urban canyon with high levels of multipath interference.&lt;p&gt;For a suburban user that occasionally uses driving directions, this delay probably isn&amp;#x27;t an issue. For an urban user who is frequently using maps, location-based searches, ridesharing apps etc, it&amp;#x27;s a total dealbreaker. If I&amp;#x27;m the kind of person who often says &amp;quot;OK Google, where&amp;#x27;s the nearest coffee shop?&amp;quot;, I don&amp;#x27;t want to have to turn on GPS and wait for a location fix before I get a useful answer.</text></comment>
<story><title>Google, You Creepy Sonofabitch</title><url>http://bradfrost.com/blog/post/google-you-creepy-sonofabitch/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>turc1656</author><text>Serious question for the HN community - why do you leave your GPS on&amp;#x2F;activated by default?  I have mine disabled unless I specifically need it for something, which is rare.  Usually the only time I ever need GPS is for driving instructions.  Otherwise, it&amp;#x27;s off.  GPS is also the biggest battery hog on the device.  Why would you leave this on?  Do you all use it far more frequently or was it something you never thought to shut off?  I can&amp;#x27;t think of one app I use that requires my location other than weather, in which case I just set the location(s) I want and can refresh at any time.  But I generally get weather from a saved DuckDuckGo search - &amp;quot;[zipcode] weather&amp;quot; - stored as a bookmark and problem solved.&lt;p&gt;On a related note, Google has created a tool that allows you to see all the data they have on you (and delete it if you want).  Because of the way I set up everything and my habits, they had virtually nothing on me.  The only stuff I think were some chats from years and years ago and a few searches I did while not in incognito mode on my phone.  I also don&amp;#x27;t use any of their apps from their main product suite - no search, email, chat, drive, etc.  And I never leave myself logged in to my account on anything.  I don&amp;#x27;t think this reduces my productivity or quality of life at all.  In fact, quality of life is almost certainly improved.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>cm2187</author><text>Geotagging of photos, reducing the time it takes to acquire your gps location when you need a map. These are reasonable reasons to have GPS running all the time. There are not reasons to upload these locations to a remote server outside of your control nor to log these locations on the device.</text></comment>