I've been an Android user since my first smartphone, but Apple's privacy and human-hand-sized phones really had me considering an iPhone for my next purchase. I ended up with a Pixel anyway, since I can't use iTunes and I like having a filesystem and using Firefox, but it was a near thing.

Haven't used iTunes in a decade, there is a new files app (thank god), and Firefox and focus have been available for years.

I thought 3rd party browsers have to use the system HTML renderer, which means Firefox can't support extensions like uBlock, Toggle Animated Gifs, etc.

Safari on iOS allows extensions for ad blocking. Mozilla made one too afaik, or the EFF.

> human-hand-sized phones

My Chinese girlfriend disputes this. Even the iPhone SE is a bit big for her, and it's just there to consume left-over parts rather than to be a living branch of their design space. No touch-screen phone maker is really serving the Asian market at this point, as far as "idiomatic" one-handed usage goes; they're seemingly expecting everyone with small hands to just treat their phones like phablets, juggling them around in both hands every time they want to tap anything.

Why would Uber be unhappy?

A few months ago they changed their app so that iOS users no longer had the "only while using" option for location access, and announced plans to stalk users even after their rides had ended.

Recently Uber updated their app to track and report users' locations even when the app was not being used.

This is why IOS needs profiles. It's that or you just uninstall the app after each use, which is a pain.

We could try to build a network to deliver applications, which would stop when you close them. We only need a system to map names to ips and some standards for protocols. We could even run them in a sandbox for security. Would be awesome.

I'd like to specify whether an app runs over my VPN on an app-by-app basis.

Maps and Pandora, no, browser and email, yes.

It's not necessary to uninstall the app after each use to prevent tracking - in Settings...Privacy...Location Services, you can disable location on a per-app basis.

(this is admittedly a pain, and Apple enforcing in-use-only option availability is a welcome change)

Usually these snoopy apps refuse to run unless you enable it first. So you still have to remember to turn it back off when you're done.

That's what the "Only While Using" option is all about. In iOS 10 (and earlier), apps could choose to request location tracking "Only While Using" or to request it "Always". Uber switched from the former to the latter. And the article you're commenting on is all about how iOS 11 will add "Only While Using" back as an option for all apps, so you can set it that way even though Uber doesn't want you to.

Appreciate the explanation.

It is not allowed for apps to refuse to run without location permissions. If you do that the app will be rejected. So no, 'usually' apps do not do that. iOS is not Android.

Hmm, good point. Thanks for drawing the distinction.