Does location services use data?

Question

Now I understand this question may belong on Ask Different but I think it is appropriate for here because it pertains specifically to application development. I'm downloading some GPS locations from a server which I know uses data but then I turn on location services and am notified when the location changes based on a threshold. I then check the previous locations GPS coordinates against a region I have set according to another set of coordinates. Does any of the above location services use data? Does getting the users location and/or receiving location updates use data? If it does, does the threshold change the data usage?

Answer 1

Location data comes from 3 possible sources:

1. actual GPS chip (not all iOS devices have one)
2. known position data of the WiFi node you may be connected to
3. known position data of the cell tower(s) you are connected to.

So the question now becomes "do any of those location data sources use cellular data"?

1. Unlikely since the data comes from the GPS chip and satellite data.
2. Possibly since if WiFi is enabled on the device, but you are not connected via WiFi, cellular data may be used to obtain the estimated position of those WiFi nodes (if not known already by your iOS device).
3. Maybe. Does the cell signal include the position data of the tower? If so, no data from a data plan should be used for this data. If not, then a small amount of the data plan may be used to obtain the data.

Answer 2

It uses data if you don't have wifi access at your location. Sharing your location will use data because your location will be tracked by the closest cellular tower to you.