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A comment on Lawsuit filed alleging Google is paying Apple to stay out of the search business. Parent comment

Re:Lawsuit filed alleging Google is paying Apple to stay out... by beefield on Wednesday January 05, 2022 @02:08PM (#29813431)
Well, well. I just realized. I think that apple sets by default that IOS Safari can't use location services without going into settings. Which for a really significant chunk (majority?) of iphone users mean that any web app using location services is "broken"[1]. Which of course means that for those folks web apps are not a thing, but they go and buy an app in the app store. Well played. (#ssholes.)

[1] Due to circumstances, I have needed to demo a certain location web app to quite a few people. I am not exaggerating.

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Re:Lawsuit filed alleging Google is paying Apple to stay out... by dwaite on Wednesday January 05, 2022 @11:38PM (#29819457)
Safari is not privileged in terms of location access [1], so the user both has to let Safari have access to location information and let Safari share that location information with a site.

If the user rejected Safari's access to location, sites also will also not get location data. However, Safari has asked me for access the first time on several phone installs, so I believe Safari not having location services is still a user choosing to limit platform access at some point during setup or on demand in Safari.

Unfortunately the public often does not trust even the platform vendor with location access. I somewhat blame Google for leading the public narrative to that point - but it is admittedly a very easy topic to fearmonger about.

(Said as someone who often has to restore location access to Apple and Google maps on family members' phones as part of troubleshooting issues)

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