What's new
Apple iPad Forum 🍎

Welcome to the Apple iPad Forum, your one stop source for all things iPad. Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

Cell network search ...??

wa7shish

iPF Noob
Joined
Oct 16, 2011
Messages
8
Reaction score
0
I would like to know what cell network search means or refers to. You can find it under sittings>location services > system services here you will find it the first one in the list. I want to know what is it because it is using my location. Its have the purple arrow icon next to it, and I can see the arrow too in my status bar this prove it is using my location. I closed all my apps, turned off my wifi, and my cellular data, but it still showing up. I want to know what does it do and why it using my location, so I could turn it on or off.
 

twerppoet

iPad Fan
Joined
Jan 8, 2011
Messages
24,150
Reaction score
15,397
Location
Milton-Freewater, OR
Cell Network Search looks for nearby cellular towers to aid in determining your location. This speeds up GPS location.

With the rough location provided by cell tower triangulation the iPad can download the GPS satellite data, which it would normally take a few minutes from the satellites themselves, in a few seconds. In the absence of good GPS reception the iPhone can still give you a rough approximation of where you are, letting most apps that need location to work to some degree. This is usually a bit more accurate than the wi-fi location method.

If you turn it off the iPad will rely on locating local Wi-Fi networks instead to try and do this.

These are background tasks.

While Apple does collect this information, it is supposed to be anonymized, meaning that they know that a device was there and what it saw, but not what device was there. This data is used to improve the the location services, updating the database of cell towers and wi-fi networks.


If you want to keep better tabs on whether an actual app is using location services in the background, you can switch off Status Bar Icon at the bottom of that settings page.
 

Most reactions

Latest posts

Top