location

Read Cult of Mac’s latest posts on location:

New Eos Bridge makes positioning instruments iOS-compatible

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Eos Bridge gives almost any positioning instrument iOS Bluetooth compatibility.
Eos Bridge gives almost any positioning instrument iOS Bluetooth compatibility.
Photo: Eos Positioning Systems

Montreal-based Eos Positioning Systems, known for its Arrow Series GNSS receivers, has released Eos Bridge. The device clips on your belt and gives almost any positioning instrument iOS Bluetooth compatibility.

Just by way of background, GNSS stands for Global Navigation Satellite Systems. As such, it underlies the better-known Global Positioning System (GPS) used in the U.S. and elsewhere. GPS is one of five GNSS constellations in play around the world, and the oldest one. You can learn more here.

iOS 13 lets you strip location data when sharing photos

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iOS 13 keeps your location private.
iOS 13 keeps your location private.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

When you send a photo to somebody in iOS 12 or earlier, you also share that photo’s location. If you upload a picture to a classified ad or auction site, you potentially show everyone exactly where you live. And if you send a photo to a friend or family member, they may share that image publicly (on Facebook, for instance) — and share your home address along with the picture.

In iOS 13, you can disable location sharing for any photo you share. Some annoying limits hurt this new feature, and you have to remember to do it every time you share an image or video, but it’s still a lot better than what we have in iOS 12.

How to share photos safely with Shortcuts

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Removing geodata won’t always protect a photo’s location
Removing geodata won’t always protect a photo’s location
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

Did you know that every photo you send via iMessage, or other messaging services like WhatsApp, contains all that photo’s location data? If you snap a picture in your home, anyone who’s receives that photo will be able to see where you took it on a map.

The same goes for uploading images to online auction sites, or internet forums. The good news is that it’s easy to sanitize your images with Shortcuts.

How to stop apps from tracking your location

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Wherever you go, your iPhone is tracking youR location
Wherever you go, your iPhone is tracking you.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

Your iPhone apps can track your location. You already know that, but maybe you tell yourself that that weather app just uses your current location to give you an accurate forecast, or that your bike-routing and tracking app is just keeping a count of miles and calories.

In reality, any one of these apps may be taking that location data and selling it. One way to handle this is to keep up to date with the privacy policies of any location-aware apps you use, but that’s too much work for most of us. Instead, why not just deny them access to your location? On iOS, that’s easy, and it works.

Google tracks you even if you tell it not to

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Google
Google is still tracking users' locations without their permission.
Photo: Ed Hardy/Cult of Mac

Google’s claim that it allows users to completely turn off all location tracking is completely false, according to research conducted by the Associated Press.

Whether you’re using an iPhone or Android device, the AP found that many Google services store your location data, even if you’ve used a privacy setting that is supposed to prevent Google from grabbing your data.

iOS 12 automatically shares your location when you call 911

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iOS 12 911 calls
iOS 12 will help you get faster emergency services.
Photo: Apple

Apple is making it easier for iPhone users in the United States to be located by the emergency services with iOS 12.

When the update rolls out to everyone this fall, users will be able to automatically and securely share their location data with 911 first responders to help reduce emergency response times, Apple confirmed today.

How to stop Facebook tracking your location

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facebook tracking location
Facebook wants to know everything about you… Even where you've been.
Photo: CC Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

Your iPhone probably knows more about you than your husband or wife. It knows what websites you visit, and who’s in your VIP contact list. It knows your credit card numbers, and it knows what apps you like to read with your morning coffee. And it also knows where you are, at all times, and even what direction you’re moving in.

Apps like Facebook love to drain as much of this information as they can, but thanks to Apple’s privacy-first policy of giving control to you, the user, it’s easy to deny any app access to this sensitive data. Today we’ll see how to stop Facebook, or any other app, from tracking your location.

Your iPhone tracks every place you visit. Here’s how to see the map.

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Significant Locations
Bubbles show you where you have visited.
Photo: Cult of Mac

Your iPhone knows where you are, and it remembers where you have been. It keeps a record of your frequent hangouts — aka “significant locations” — and uses this data to make location-based suggestions using Siri and to power other features. Don’t panic, though: This data is kept on your phone, not collected by Apple.

Maybe you want to switch it off anyway, though. Perhaps you’re having an affair and don’t want your suspicious spouse to find out where you and your lover hook up. Or you’re an undercover cop and don’t want your visits to the police station to show up on your phone. Today we’ll see how to access your recent locations data, remove it, and switch it off altogether.

How to hack Photos’ search to find lost images

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find photos location
It's easy to narrow down a search, even if you can't quite remember where or when you took the photo.
Photo: Cult of Mac

Search is open of Photos’ apps best features, but when do you ever really use it? Never, I’d say, but that’s about to change. Search is only useful when there’s something you’re looking for. While it’s fun to see all the photos you took of cats, or guitars, or whatever, search’s real power comes when you’re looking for something specific. That is, when you’re looking for than one photo you need to show your dining companions right now. Let’s see some tricks on how to do that.

How to use Instagram’s new Hashtag and Location stories

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Instagram location stories
Instagram now has Stories based on location and on hashtags.
Photo: Cult of Mac

Instagram just added two new ways to explore photos that aren’t from the folks you follow: Hashtag Stories and Location Stories. These gather photos by place or subject, whereupon you can browse by tapping through them. If you see a picture you like, you can then then explore the area (or hashtag) further.

Location-based stories are coming soon to Instagram

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Here's what Instagram location stories look like.
Here's what Instagram location stories look like.
Photo: Josh Constantine/TechCrunch

Instagram’s streak of sniping features from Snapchat isn’t about to stop with today’s new addition of Face Filters.

Location-based stories are set to be the next big feature Instagram adds to its toolset, only instead of just copying the way Snapchat curates stories, Instagram plans to tap into one of its ‘hidden gems’ to make stories a powerful tool for all users.

Snapchat pays record $7.7 million for geofilters patent

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The previous record wasn't even half that amount.
The previous record wasn't even half that amount.
Photo: Snapchat

Snap, Inc., the company behind Snapchat, just paid a staggering $7.7 million to acquire a “geofilters” patent and prevent it being snapped up by Facebook.

It is believed to be “by far the highest amount paid” for a single patent in Israel — the previous record was less than half that — and it goes to local firm Mobli.

WhatsApp will soon let you locate your friends

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WhatsApp
WhatsApp is getting its own Find My Friends feature.
Photo: Killian Bell/Cult of Mac

The latest versions of the WhatsApp beta for Android and iOS reveal an upcoming feature that will allow users to locate their friends.

Just like the Find My Friends app offered by Apple, WhatsApp will ask for your permission before making your location data available to your contacts.

How to find out which Mac apps are using your location

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Find out when your Mac is looking at your location data.
Find out when your Mac is looking at your location data.
Photo: Apple

As our digital lives converge across mobile and desktop devices like our iPhones and Macbooks, we rely on them knowing where we are at any given time. Safari suggestions, for example, count on knowing your location, as do any Maps searches or such.

You might want to know when your Location data is being used, however, for privacy reason. If you enable the Location Services menu bar, you’ll be able to see when any app is accessing your private location data, making it more possible to lock down any sources you don’t want using it.

Here’s how to get that menu bar notice working.

Pro Tip: Use Apple Watch to send friends your exact location

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Sending your location is just a tap and a press away.
Sending your location is just a tap and a press away.
Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac

Pro_Tip_Cult_of_MacOne of the cooler features of having a pocket computer like the iPhone is being able to send a friend your location via Messages. Just a couple of taps on the iPhone and you can let anyone know where you’re at. It’s easy and super useful when you need to get a group together at a specific location.

The Apple Watch has a similar feature, which lets you do the very same thing without ever having to pull your iPhone out of your pocket.

Here’s how.

5 super-quick iPhoto tips to make your photos even better

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Don't overlook this great bit of free software for your photos. Photo: Stephen Smith/Cult of Mac
Don't overlook this great bit of free software for your photos. Photo: Stephen Smith/Cult of Mac

iPhoto is a free download for everyone these days, making it a basic bit of kit for anyone dealing with the deluge of photographic data we seem to collect. Still, it’s often overlooked by the best of us because of its limitations.

That’s unfortunate, because the simple program offers some pretty useful features that can quickly let you get on with enjoying your photos rather than tweaking them.

Here are five simple tips for using Apple’s built-in photo “shoebox,” letting you make your photos better and more organized even more quickly.

How to send buddies your location details with iMessage

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How to share your location from Messages on your iPhone. Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac
How to share your location from Messages on your iPhone. Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

Sometimes it’s important to let your buddies or loved ones know your location. Whether you need to share this information for safety reasons, or because you like them knowing where you are on our beautiful planet, iOS 8 and your iPhone make it super-simple.

There are two ways to let your friends know where you are at any given time with iOS 8. You can either send your location immediately, or you can share your location details with people over a prescribed amount of time.

Both options are right in an app you use all the time anyway: Messages. Here’s how.

Grab Your Current Location As Plain Text Using Pythonista And Drafts

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This. Is. Rad
This. Is. Rad

Prepare to have you socks blown off, and to know the exact GPS coordinates of the exact spot where those socks land. How? With Dr. Drang’s new Pythonista scripts which grabs your current location and writes it down in plain-text form. Better still, it does this using the Drafts app, so you can add location stamps to anything you like – journal entries, notes, or even pictures of your socks, over there in the corner of the room.

DeGeo Strips Location Data From iOS Photos

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geodeo

 

DeGeo is an app that removes the location data from your photos before sharing them, while leaving non-location metadata intact. As someone who switches off the location option in Instagram whenever I’m at my home or a friend’s home, I’m totally into this $1 data stripper.

Add Network Locations And Switch Among Them In The Apple Menu [OS X Tips]

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Location Location Location

Network locations are extremely useful if you use your Mac across a variety of networking environments, like a Proxy-laden school building, a super secured enterprise site, or a special set up at home. Each environment could take a ton of extra time setting up the details if you only had one networking setup system.

Luckily, Mac has always had this idea of Locations, a way of setting and saving all the little networking details for each location you use your Mac in. Did you know, however, that you can switch between network locations in the Apple menu? I didn’t, so I figured I’d share what I found out.