What is geolocation on a tablet. Determining a person's location by mobile phone number (geolocation)

The word "geolocation" has been on everyone's lips for a long time. But most people have only a general idea of \u200b\u200bwhat it is. Let's take a closer look at what this service is and how it can be useful.

Geolocation

What is geolocation? Geolocation is data that informs in real time about the exact location of a computer, tablet or phone and, accordingly, its owner. Through this service, data such as the country in which the subscriber is located, city, street and house are established.

How it works

A prerequisite for the service is the connection of the device to the Internet. Each mobile device has a special software, allowing you to track its current geolocation.

Through an Internet connection, the service locates the device using the current IP address of the subscriber. What is a geolocation service, we discussed above. Now you need to understand how it works.

What is it for

Now, many programs developed for smartphones, tablets and personal computers, upon registration, and some during use, request the data of the current location.

Some programs need this in order to place this data in the client's profile, other users could see his real location.

Applications designed for which request geolocation in order to tell the subscriber exactly where he is at a given moment in time, help to plot the shortest route to the desired place.

Working with search queries

Geolocation is of great importance when processing user search queries. What is search engine geolocation and how does it help?

Depending on the location of the subscriber, search engines provide appropriate responses to his queries. This is very convenient and saves time searching for the information you need.

So, for example, when asking about how much and where to buy a new car, the system will first of all show sites that advertise the sale of cars in nearby cities.

On mobile devices

What is phone geolocation? The included service helps you locate the nearest cafes, restaurants, theaters, fitness centers, and more.

In addition, the included geolocation system in the phone will help find the device in case of loss or theft. This service will be valid even if the SIM card was replaced when the phone was stolen. The main thing is that the Internet continues to work. This can be both the Internet, working from a SIM card, and Wi-Fi.

Service cost

This service is completely free. The only thing that costs money or megabytes is the traffic used to download the maps. If your phone uses exclusively the Internet cellular operator, then the payment will be charged according to the tariff to which the subscriber is connected.

If the mobile device uses exclusively Wi-Fi or is connected unlimited Internet from a mobile operator, only Internet traffic will be consumed.

For business

What is geolocation for business? How can she help in its development? By tracking the demand for certain goods in specific regions, the firm can change in its branches. For example, you can set lower prices for goods that are not in demand.

In addition, for the convenience of customers, you can specify prices for each region in the currency used for payment.

How to connect

What is geolocation in a smartphone? How to connect it and how to use it? On phones of the fourth series, to enable the function of determining your current location, you need to go to "Settings". In this menu, you need to find an item called "Geolocation" and activate this function by moving the key to the side.

After enabling this feature, you will be prompted to select which programs you allow to use your location data.

What is geolocation on an iPhone? How does it connect? To enable this option on phones with an apple of the fifth series, you also need to go to the "Settings" section, from there go to the tab called "Privacy", where in the very first line there will be a function called "Geolocation Services".

After activating this function, the system will offer to do all the same steps as in the fourth model. You will need to choose which programs can use your geolocation data and determine the time zone.

What is iAd geolocation? It has the same purpose as the iPhohe. This program is included universally.

The only difference that can be very useful is the ability to find a lost or stolen phone using a tablet on the same iOs platform.

To do this, you need to install a special program called "Find an iPhone". You can download it for free through the AppStore application. Next, you need to register in this search program by entering your Apple ID data there. Then you need to check that the Find iPhone function is enabled on your phone. In order to do this, you need to go to the "Settings" section, go to the tab called iCloud, in which you can activate this function.

In order for the service to work, you need to enable it and allow the use of geolocation.

The latest version of the fifth series software offers additional service... In the same menu where the function to find a phone is connected, you can enable a function with which a lost phone, before it finally runs out, will send data about its current location to the manufacturer.

To find a lost or stolen phone, you need to go to the "All devices" section from another device previously paired with it. Then go to the “My devices” tab, where the model of the lost one will be visible, after which the location of the requested device will be shown.

If the missing phone is disabled, you need to check the box in the "Notify me about the find" section in the device from which the search is carried out. In this case, when the phone works again, you will know exactly where it is.

For the convenience of searching, this program has several useful functions. You can go to the settings of the "Find an iPhone" program and put a tick next to the item "Play sound". If it is activated, when searching for the device, it will turn on with which you can easily find the lost device.

The second useful function of the program is “Lost Mode”. If you activate it, you can block the phone, while on its display a number will be displayed on which the person who found it can call you.

The third function is called "Erase iPhone". With its help, you can remotely erase all your data stored on the lost device.

If the phone was lost, and all data was deleted from it, and then it was found or returned, you can easily restore all personal information using a backup copy that any device of this company makes every time it is connected to a personal computer.

Hello! Geolocation services, today, are one of the key functions for absolutely any device. And Apple's gadgets are no exception. No, of course, it is quite possible to call, write SMS, take notes and go online without using them. However, there are many programs, applications and services in which, without determining the exact positioning, they go nowhere.

Take, for example, the same cards or the coolest (in my opinion) "Find iPhone" option (Lost Mode, Remote Lock, etc.). Agree that without finding coordinates it would be very difficult to use them (if at all possible). So geolocation is a very necessary thing - let's find out more about it ...

Let's go! :)

What is geolocation in iOS and why is it needed?

As you probably already understood, this term hides a more familiar word to us - navigation. It is she who is responsible for determining the exact location of your iPhone or iPad.

You can use navigation on absolutely all iOS devices, except for:

• iPod Touch.
• iPad (versions without SIM card support).

It is on these gadgets that geolocation services do not work, for a simple reason - Apple does not install GPS receivers in them.

Why is it needed at all? Well, everything is clear here - there are many programs (maps, navigation applications, weather, etc.), for the normal and correct operation of which, these services are simply necessary.

What to look out for when using:

1. As a rule, the device gets very hot.
2. The battery is quickly consumed.

Like me, this is normal and there is no need to panic. Just pay attention to the top of the screen, and if the geolocation icon is constantly on, it means that some application is constantly using it. It is better to close it or disable access to this program to GPS in a timely manner. How to do it…

How to turn location services on and off on iPhone and iPad

You can manage them, like any other function, in the device settings. Go to Settings - Privacy - Geolocation Services.

Here you can either turn them on or off completely. Plus, programs are displayed that use these services in their work, and it is possible to disable forced navigation for any particular application.

There are two solutions available:

• Never include.
• Only when using the program.

Better to leave the second option. Then it turns out that the GPS seems to be always on, but it will be used only at the moment when the program itself needs it. Which has a positive effect on charging :)

By the way, if you just bought a device, then with, the option to activate geolocation is also available.

How to search iPhone by geolocation - via computer and mobile device

A great option to find your iPhone or iPad. In order to search for a device, two conditions must be met:

1. Active "Find iPhone" function (enabled or not).
2. Working geolocation.

If these two conditions are met, then we start looking! It doesn't matter where, from a computer or mobile, we go to the iCloud website, and then we indicate the Apple ID and password (the one that is set on the missing gadget).

It is enough to click on the button "find iPhone" and after a while you will see on the maps the place where it is now.

Plus there will be an opportunity to perform some actions with it:

• Play sound (convenient if you lost it at home).
• Activate Lost Mode, then the device will be locked and in order to unlock and use it, you will need to enter your Apple ID and password (about this situation and how to solve it).
• Erase iPhone. Equivalent to a factory reset. Just delete all information from it.

Moving on to the most unpleasant, to the problems ...

What to do if iPhone geolocation does not work?

It is a mechanical failure when the GPS module does not work that is quite rare.

And here it is clear what to do - either use it without it, or replace it in a service center. However, problems can often be solved without resorting to the help of specialists.

1. It is necessary to understand where exactly the navigation does not work. If only in one or several applications, then we look whether services are enabled for these programs (we read how to do this at the beginning of the article).
2. If it does not accurately or poorly determine the location - check if the Internet is turned on via a SIM card or Wi-Fi. This data helps to position you better. Plus, accuracy is influenced by terrain relief, buildings, buildings, clouds, etc. In general, everything that stands in the direct path between satellites and the iPhone.
3. Jelbreak, or rather the tweaks installed with it, can also cause navigation failures.
4. You can reset the network settings, and if it doesn't help, then. Do not restore from a backup, but test the operation on a clean device.

If, after performing all these actions, there is no result, then we go to the service - there are no other options.

Geolocation

Geolocation helps determine the geographic location of website visitors. And this does not mean just the country or even the city the visitor is in. Geolocation can narrow information about a person's location to a city block or even determine his exact coordinates if he went to a page from a smartphone.

All major browsers provide a good level of geolocation support:

Most of the new JavaScript features we looked at earlier were part of the original HTML5 specification, and then split off when the specification was handed over to the W3C. But geolocation was never a part of HTML5, it just took full shape around the same time. But almost everyone sees this opportunity, along with the capabilities of HTML5, as part of one big wave of future technologies.

How geolocation works

The possibility of geolocation raises quite a few questions from people who usually cannot be called paranoid. For example, how can some software know that I am not sick, as I told my boss, but watching football in a cafe? Is there some hidden code in it that tracks all my actions? I wonder what kind of van is there on the street and those people who pretend to change the wheel?

Fortunately, geolocation is not a surveillance horror story. This is because even if the browser can figure out your location, it won't tell the website without your explicit permission:

The web page wants to retrieve location data of the visitor. The visitor can consent to provide this data or not provide it. This behavior of the Chrome browser is not a proprietary initiative of its developers, but an official rule of the geolocation standard, which requires that every website trying to obtain visitor location data must obtain its permission to do so.

To calculate the location of a visitor, the browser enlists the help of a location provider, for example, Google Location Services for Chrome. Determining the location is not an easy task, and the supplier takes several different approaches to solve it.

In the case of a desktop computer with a fixed (i.e. non-wireless) connection, the method is simple, but not very accurate. When someone connects to the Internet, data from their computer or local network is sent (via cable, leased line, or dial-up) to a powerful networked hardware device, which in turn sends it to the Internet. This hardware device has a unique IP address, i.e. a numeric code that identifies this device to other network members. This device also has a physical mailing address.

The location provider uses these two types of information to determine the geographic location of a visitor to a web page. First, the IP address of the device through which the connection is made is calculated, and then its physical address is determined. Naturally, this indirect approach allows you to determine the exact location of not the user, but only his Internet provider.

However, even such imprecise results are often useful. For example, if you use a geolocation tool to find a take-out pizza store, you can quickly jump to the area that really interests you - near your home - even if you are not very close.

The method of determining the location by IP address is the most imprecise method of geolocation. If a better data source is available, the location provider will use that source.

If a visitor wirelessly accesses the page from a netbook or smartphone, the location provider uses the nearest wireless access points. Ideally, a location provider selects data from a huge database to determine the exact locations of these access points, and then uses the information to triangulate the visitor's location.

And if connected with mobile phone the location provider uses a similar triangulation method, but uses signals from different antennas mobile communication... This fast, relatively efficient procedure usually allows the location of the visitor to be determined with an accuracy of 1 km.

Finally, many mobile devices are equipped with special hardware GPS (Global Positioning Service), which allows determining the location of such devices with an accuracy of only a few meters. But this method of geolocation has its drawback - it is slower and uses more power, which is important for battery-powered devices. In addition, it does not work particularly well in cities with large and tall buildings due to signal reflections from buildings.

Of course, other ways of determining the location are also possible. Nothing prevents the location provider from using other sources of information for this, such as data from RFID devices (Radio Frequency Identification), data from Bluetooth devices, cookies with information from a map site like Google Maps, etc.

From all this, the following conclusion can be drawn: regardless of how you connect to the Internet, even if a website visitor is sitting at a desktop computer, the geolocation option allows you to determine its location with greater or less accuracy. And if he goes online from a mobile phone or from a device equipped with GPS hardware, his location can be determined with more than less accuracy.

In what areas is geolocation applied?

Having answered the big question, how does geolocation work, we need to deal with one more thing: what is the use of it for us?

Here, the key aspect to understand is that the geolocation functionality allows you to determine the approximate geographic coordinates of a page visitor. And it's all. The web developer needs to combine this simple but important information with more detailed visitor location data. This data can be obtained from a web server (usually from a huge back-end database) or some kind of geographic web service (say Google Maps).

For example, a large business with branches in multiple locations might want to compare the location of a web page visitor with the location of its various branches to determine the closest to the visitor.

And the developer of a social media tool can create a diagram of the location of a group of users, showing them the distance between them. Alternatively, location data can be used to provide website visitors with a service, such as finding the nearest convenience store or cafe that is open 24/7. In any case, the location information of the web page visitor is only important in combination with other geographic data.

While the mapping and geographic services provided by other companies are quite extensive, we will look at one of them - Google Maps - a little later.

Determining the coordinates of the visitor

Geolocation is extremely simple. It consists of three object methods navigator.geolocation : getCurrentPosition (), watchPosition () and clearWatch ().

The navigator object is a relatively minor piece of JavaScript. Several properties provide information about the current browser and its capabilities. The most useful of these is the navigator.userAgent property, which provides an information string containing details about the browser, its version, and the operating system it is running on.

To get the location of the visitor, the method is called getCurrentPosition ()... But it should be understood that the location process takes a certain amount of time, during which no self-respecting browser will stop all activity on the page while waiting for this data. Therefore, the getCurrentPosition () method is executed asynchronously, i.e. after starting it, execution of the following code continues. When the location finishes, another piece of code is invoked to process the results.

The completion of positioning can be expected to be accompanied by a notification much like the completion of loading an image or reading a text file. But JavaScript is anything but sequential. And when the getCurrentPosition () method is called, the completion function is passed to it.

When executed, this code calls the getCurrentPosition () method and passes a function to it. When the browser completes the positioning process, it activates this function, which displays a message box:

Do not forget: the use of geolocation is permissible only if the browser supports this feature and the visitor allows its use. It is also wise to test a page that uses this feature before hosting it on a web server for practical use. Failure to do so may cause problems (for example, geolocation error handling will not function) and some browsers may not be able to determine the user's location at all.

Determining the accuracy of the provided location

Upon successful execution of the getCurrentPosition () method, the code gets the object positionwhich has two properties: timestamp (contains the geolocation execution time) and coords (contains geographic coordinates).

But the coords property, in turn, is a subobject of the position object and besides the properties latitude and longitudethat determine the geographic coordinates of the visitor has several other properties that provide additional information about the location. These are properties such as altitude (height above sea level), heading(direction of travel) and speed (speed). But at the moment these properties are not supported by any browser.

More interesting is the property accuracy, which indicates the accuracy of a specific location in meters. (This means that as the accuracy of the location data decreases, the value of the accuracy property increases, which can be somewhat confusing.) For example, a value of the accuracy property of 2135 meters means that the user's location was determined within that distance.

The accuracy property is useful for determining the quality of geolocation results. For example, if the accuracy is measured in tens of kilometers, the geolocation data is unlikely to have any practical value:

If (position.coords.accuracy\u003e 10000) (alert ("The visitor can be anywhere on the map");)

In such a case, it may be reasonable to notify the user about the undefined data of his location and / or ask him to enter the correct information himself.

Error processing

Geolocation functionality does not work if the visitor refuses to give permission to use it. In this case, the completion function in our example is not called and the page will not know if the browser is still trying to determine the location or if there was an error in the execution of the code.

To solve this problem, when calling the getCurrentPosition () method, it needs to pass not one function, but two. The first function, as we have already considered, is called in case of successful completion of the geolocation process. Otherwise, the second function is called. The following is an example using these two functions:

// Save the element in which the page displays the result var result; window.onload \u003d function () (result \u003d document.getElementById ("result"); // If geolocation functionality is available, // try to determine the coordinates of the visitor if (navigator.geolocation) (// Pass two functions navigator.geolocation.getCurrentPosition ( geolocationSuccess, geolocationFailure); // Display the result result.innerHTML \u003d "Search started";) else (// Display the result result.innerHTML \u003d "Your browser does not support geolocation";)) function geolocationSuccess (position) (result.innerHTML \u003d " Last time you were spotted here: "+ position.coords.latitude +", "+ position.coords.longitude;) function geolocationFailure (positionError) (result.innerHTML \u003d" Geolocation error ";)

When you call the geolocation error function, the browser passes it an error object that has two properties: code (contains a numeric code indicating one of the four error types) and message (contains a short notice of the problem). Typically, the notification is for testing, and the error code is used by the function code to determine how to resolve the problem.

A modified error function that checks all possible values \u200b\u200bof the error code looks like this:

Function geolocationFailure (positionError) (if (positionError \u003d\u003d 1) (result.innerHTML \u003d "You decided not to provide your location data," + "but this is not a problem. We will not ask you for it anymore.";) Else if (positionError \u003d\u003d 2) (result.innerHTML \u003d "There is a problem with the network or the location service" + "cannot be contacted for some other reason.";) else if (positionError \u003d\u003d 3) (result.innerHTML \u003d "He managed to determine the location "+" within the specified time. ";) else (result.innerHTML \u003d" Mysterious error. ";))

Setting geolocation parameters

So, we have seen how to call the getCurrentPosition () method with two parameters: a function to handle the success of geolocation and a function to handle an error when it tries to execute it. But this method can be passed one more parameter, which is an object that sets certain geolocation parameters.

There are currently three parameters that can be set, each corresponding to a separate property of the geolocation parameters object. The following example sets one parameter, enableHighAccuracy:

Navigator.geolocation.getCurrentPosition (geolocationSuccess, geolocationFailure, (enableHighAccuracy: true));

And this example sets all three parameters:

Navigator.geolocation.getCurrentPosition (geolocationSuccess, geolocationFailure, (enableHighAccuracy: true, timeout: 10000, maximumAge: 60000));

In both of these examples, geolocation parameters are set using JavaScript object literals.

What do these properties mean? Property enableHighAccuracy enables high-precision positioning using the GPS system (if the device supports this feature and the visitor has allowed its use). Do not set this parameter unless you need to get the exact coordinates. its use greatly increases the battery consumption of the browser device. By default, the enableHighAccuracy property is set to false.

Property timeout defines the period of time during which the page will wait to receive geolocation data before considering an attempt unsuccessful.

Timeout values \u200b\u200bare set in milliseconds, i.e. 10,000ms means a maximum wait of 10s. The countdown begins after the user agrees to provide geolocation data. By default, the timeout property is set to 0, which means that the page will wait for geolocation results indefinitely without triggering a timeout error.

Property maximumAge allows caching of location data. For example, a maximumAge value of 60,000 ms allows you to use geolocation data from a minute ago. This saves time and computing resources, and also means that geolocation results will be less accurate if the visitor moves around. By default, the maximumAge property is set to 0, which means that cached geolocation results are never used. The property can also be assigned the special value infinity, in which case cached geolocation data of any age will be used.

Map display

Determining the geographic coordinates of a website visitor's location is, of course, an interesting trick. But it quickly loses its appeal if we do not find some useful use of this information. This will not be the case, since there are a lot of geographic location data on the internet. (Often the challenge is converting this information into a format useful for a web application.)

In addition, there are several mapping services, the undisputed leader of which is Google Maps. Reliable counts of hits on this service suggest that Google Maps is the most used web application for any purpose.

Using Google Maps, you can create a map of any size for any part of the world. You can control how visitors interact with this map, generate driving directions from one point to another and, most useful, overlay your information on this map.

Google Maps provides its services free of charge (even for commercial sites) subject to free access to the site. (For paid sites, Google provides a paid mapping service.) Google Maps does not currently insert ads on sites that use its services, but the license terms explicitly state the right to do so in the future.

The image below shows a modified version of the geolocation page. Here the obtained geographic coordinates of the user are used to display his location on the map:

The creation of such a page presents no difficulties. The first thing we need is a link to the scripts for the Google Maps API. This link is placed before all script blocks that use the mapping functionality:

...

Where do you live?

The size of the map can be determined using the style sheet rule:

#mapSurface (width: 600px; height: 400px; border: solid 1px black;)

Everything is now ready to use the functionality provided by Google Maps. The first step is to create a map surface. In this example, the map is created on page load so that it can be used in success or geolocation error functions. (After all, a geolocation error simply means that the page cannot determine the current location of the user. In that case, it still makes sense to display the map, but only center it around the default coordinates.)

Var results; var map; window.onload \u003d function () (result \u003d document.getElementById ("result"); // Set some parameters for the map. In this example // set the initial zoom level and type of the map. // For other parameters, see the documentation for Google Maps.var myOptions \u003d (zoom: 13, mapTypeId: google.maps.MapTypeId.ROADMAP); // Create a map using the settings above map \u003d new google.maps.Map (document.getElementById ("mapSurface"), myOptions ); // Trying to determine the user's location if (navigator.geolocation) (navigator.geolocation.getCurrentPosition (geolocationSuccess, geolocationFailure); result.innerHTML \u003d "Search completed";) else (result.innerHTML \u003d "Your browser does not support geolocation"; goToDefaultLocation ();))

But the map created by this code is not displayed on the page yet, because geographic position has not yet been established. To do this, you need to create a specific global point using the object LatLng, which is then placed on the map using the method setCenter () cards. The following is the code that does all these things for the visitor coordinates:

Function geolocationSuccess (position) (// Convert the location to a LatLng object var location \u003d new google.maps.LatLng (position.coords.latitude, position.coords.longitude); // Display this point on the map map.setCenter (location); )

This code will be enough to display a map like the one shown in the picture above. But you can add various gadgets to this basemap, such as displaying other locations in a sidebar, or pop-up information windows. The latter is created using an object infoWindow... The following is the code to create and display the popup information window (as in the picture above):

Function geolocationSuccess (position) (... // Create a popup information window and set // its text and position on the map.var infowindow \u003d new google.maps.InfoWindow (); infowindow.setContent ("You are somewhere in this area. "); infowindow.setPosition (location); // Display a popup infowindow.open (map); results.innerHTML \u003d" Location is marked on the map. ";)

Finally, in case of a geolocation error or lack of geolocation support in the visitor's browser, you can perform essentially the same actions, but using alternative preset coordinates instead of the visitor's coordinates:

Function geolocationFailure (positionError) (... goToDefaultLocation ();) function goToDefaultLocation () (// Approximate coordinates of the center of Moscow var moscow \u003d new google.maps.LatLng (55.753878,37.649275); map.setCenter (moscow);)

Tracking visitor movements

In all the examples we've looked at so far, we've used the getCurrentPosition () method, which is the core functionality of geolocation. But the geolocation object has two other methods that track the visitor's movements and notify the page about those movements.

The first of these methods is the method watchPosition () which is pretty much similar to the getCurrentPosition () method. Like the getCurrentPosition () method, the watchPosition () method takes parameters: a success function (the only required parameter) and an error function:

Navigator.geolocation.watchPosition (geolocationSuccess, geolocationFailure);

The difference between these two methods is that the watchPosition () method can fire the success function multiple times - by determining the location the first time, and then every time it detects a new location. For desktops that never move, the getCurrentPosition () and watchPosition () methods have exactly the same effect.

But unlike the getCurrentPosition () method, the watchPosition () method returns a number. This number can be stored and passed to the clearWatch () method to stop tracking movements:

Var watch \u003d navigator.geolocation.watchPosition (geolocationSuccess, geolocationFailure); ... navigator.geolocation.clearWatch (watch);

You can skip this step and continue to receive movement messages until the visitor leaves the page.

Modern phones are equipped with dozens of useful tools that make life much easier for their owners. These services include geolocation. Without this technology, it is impossible to imagine the work of many applications for smartphones and tablets. The owner of the gadget can enable and disable geolocation, as well as manage the parameters for transferring geodata on their own using the phone settings menu.

What is geolocation

Geolocation is determining the real location of the smartphone or other electronic device. The service calculates the geographic coordinates of the gadget using radio navigation methods and geographic information systems. Geolocation programs receive signal from GPS and mobile base stations. The service also processes data on the connection to Wi-Fi and uses the Bluetooth interface for more accurate location determination.

The concept “Geolocation” refers to both the process of locating a device and the resulting coordinates. The service can use information about the IP address of a gadget connected to the Internet. By sending a request to a special WHOIS server, the program receives data on the physical location of a computer, tablet or phone.

On a note:if you want to hide your real address when entering Internet resources, learn more about the technology.

Why do I need geolocation?

Geolocation is used mobile applicationswho need to know the location of the device for full operation:

• Maps and GPS-navigators - show where the phone is at the moment and help you build the best route based on the current location.
• Browser ( Google chrome, Opera, Yandex) - compiles the results based on the user's geolocation to make it easier to find the information you need.
• Weather - Geodata helps programs calculate a more accurate forecast.
• Camera - you can mark the coordinates of the place where the picture was taken.
• Taxi - in the application, the user sees his address on the map, as well as the movement of the car that went to fulfill the order, etc.

Geolocation is used by most programs that require authorization... The app keeps track of where the account was logged in from. In addition, it helps to protect the personal information of the profile owner. When trying to authorize from someone else's device or from a new location, the user will receive a notification and will be able to log out of the account if he suspects that he has been hacked.

It is important to note that some programs only request access to the location when they are in use, while others - even in background... If location services are disabled on a smartphone, applications will not be able to obtain information about its location.

On a note:find out what it is for and how to check its presence on your phone.

How do I enable geolocation?

Let's consider options on different OS.

On android

To enable geolocation on a device with the Android operating system, you need:

• Open the "Settings" menu. In the "Personal" section ("Personal data"), select the "Location" item.

• Activate the function by clicking on the switch opposite the inscription "Location".

• In the "Mode" section, you can choose how the service will determine device geodata:
  • by GPS sensor;
  • over the network - a signal from the nearest mobile communication stations is used, the geolocation can be shown with errors;
  • over the network and the GPS sensor - a combination of all available tools for a more accurate location.
• By going to the Geodata Access menu, you can set geolocation options for individual applications. You must click on the name of the program and select one of the proposed options.

Some Androids have a faster way to enable geolocation. Swipe down from the top of the device screen to bring up the notification panel and activate the Geodata function.

On iPhone

To enable geolocation on an iPhone or iPad, the owner of the gadget will need:

• Open "Settings" and go to the "Privacy" section.

• Select in the submenu the item "Geolocation services".

• Activate "Geolocation Services" using the appropriate switch.

• In the "System Services" section, you can configure personal settings for transferring geodata to the iPhone.

• Also, the user can enable and disable geolocation services for individual applications by clicking on the name of a particular program.

Summing up

Geolocation is the determination of the physical location of the phone using special services and tools. Geodata is used by programs such as Maps, Browser, Weather, and applications with an authorization function to protect accounts and personal information of their owners. Geolocation services on Android and iPhone are enabled through the smartphone settings menu.

Your phone or tablet, using Global Positioning System satellites, or GPS, wireless networks or a mobile phone, can pinpoint your location. Android and installed applications can use this information to tag photos, customize your searches, and display local information.

On Android, you can choose whether to allow access to your location and - if so - what location tools it can use. Location access is configured separately for Google apps and other applications.

• Tap " Home" (1).
• Tap " All Apps"(2).

Attention: If the application screen displays the “ Widgets", Click the" Applications».

• Tap " Settings"(3).

Attention: If no settings are displayed on the Apps screen, scroll the screen left or right.

• Tap " Locating" (4).

Attention: You may have to scroll down to display the location button on your phone.

• Tap " Determine my location», As necessary, by moving the switch to the On or Off position (5).

Attention: If you move the switch to the "On" position, a dialog box appears asking if you agree to the location. Tap Agree to close the dialog box.

• Touch “select” or “disable” (6) GPS satellites as needed.

• Tap to select or disable Wi-Fi and mobile networks (7).
• Tap " Settings»
• In the list of accounts, click Google (9).

• Tap " Location options" (ten).

• Tap " Allow Google apps to track your location", Switching as necessary to the position" On. " or " Off. " (eleven).

• Tap Google (12).
• Tap " Settings».

Attention: On the location setting screen for Google applications, you can touch location, and go to the location screen for other applications.

Should I provide location access?

It's entirely up to you. Every time an application requests location access, make sure there is a good reason for it. Providing access to your location increases the potential of your phone or tablet, but also raises questions about privacy. For example, allowing social media apps to access your location allows your friends to keep up with your movements, but also helps bad people chase you. Likewise, adding location information for photos that allows you to sort by location, which is helpful. However, if you publish these photos, the online location information will become known to other people.