For your friends to see your live position all the time, Zenly needs permission to access your location even when the app is closed.
Why is that?
Simply put, Zenly retrieves your location when your friend opens up their map to see what you’re up to. 💞 This can happen when you’re not using the app. This is how Zenly displays your real-time location, and also shows your speed, your time on the spot, when you’re heading somewhere, etc. basically all the cool things that make Zenly, Zenly!
Changes to iOS13
With the iOS13 update to Apple devices, there are now 2 location data permission options. Your choice will impact how you can use Zenly with your friends:
- If you choose ‘Allow While Using App‘: Zenly only has access to location data when you have the app open. Therefore, your friends will only see your up-to-date location when you open Zenly. 😔
- If you choose ‘Always‘: Zenly can always access location data, even when running in the background. This ensures your friends will be able to see your location at all times. 🏆🐬
Before iOS13, an app could immediately ask permission to ‘Always‘ access an iPhone’s location, even when running in the background. This is no longer possible on iOS13+. 😤
Zenly must first ask to access an iPhone’s location while using the app. following this, Zenly can then request to change this permission from ‘Allow While Using App‘ to ‘Always‘.
How to Configure iOS13 Location Services for Zenly?
Changing settings is annoying, sorry that you have to do this. 😔 Follow these steps to ensure you and your friends can continue to get the most out of using Zenly together:
● Sign-up/log-in
Zenly will first ask you to grant ‘Allow While Using App‘ access. Unfortunately, Zenly won‘t work with just this, so after choosing ‘Allow While Using App‘, Zenly will ask you to open your iPhone settings and change the permission to ‘Always‘.
● In normal use
Your iPhone may randomly prompt you to confirm that you want to continue allowing Zenly to use your location in the background, please select confirm if you want to keep using Zenly in the best way possible. 🙏
So the most important thing to remember: select ‘Always‘ so that your friends can see your real-time location on Zenly.
If you mistakenly chose ‘Allow While Using App” and want to change to ‘Always‘:
‘Settings‘ > ‘Privacy‘ > ‘Location Services‘ > make sure ‘location services‘ is enabled
‘Settings‘ > ‘Privacy‘ > ‘Location Services‘ > ‘Zenly‘ > ensure the option ‘Always‘ is selected
If, after enabling ‘Always‘, you‘re still having location issues, check out our location troubleshooting articles in our community center. 📖🐛
Note, if you selected ‘Allow While Using App‘ when creating an account or re-login, and never manually changed the permission to ‘Always‘, the iOS13 prompt will misleadingly tell you that Zenly has been using your location in the background. 🤥 Just know that this is false as Zenly cannot access your location in the background unless you have granted the permission ‘Always‘ in your iPhone’s location services. The more you know, ey?