Already knew? iPhone has a well-hidden map that shows where you’ve been. TECHBOOK shows how to find them.
It doesn’t matter whether you have GPS on or are just on the mobile network and registering in WiFi networks – thanks to location data, the iPhone always knows where the user is at the moment. But that’s not all. It even keeps track of when you’ve visited and left a place. An overview of this can be found on the iPhone in a special map.
TECHBOOK editor Adrian Mühlroth tried it out himself. The result: the iPhone has noted more than 101 visited places in the past three months. In some cases even the exact location or shop! Find out what your iPhone has collected with the TECHBOOK guide.
Find Important Places Map on iPhone: Step-by-Step Guide
1. On your iPhone, open the settings and scroll to the point privacy.
2. In the privacy menu, tap on the dot location services.
3. Scroll to the bottom of the page and tap the dot there system services.
4. Here you will find the option Important Places. Select this.
5. All the places you have visited in the past are noted in the overview – provided they were recorded by the phone. Tap on a city or a place, you land in a map view. Here the iPhone shows exactly when you were where within the city.
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How useful is the hidden card?
According to Apple’s support page, the Important Places data is used to personalize location-based services. For example, they are used to plan a traffic route in Apple Maps in advance and to improve the design of memories in the Photos app. But from a data protection perspective, tracking important locations is not without its problems. Virtually anyone can easily identify a movement pattern from history and the map, and learn where you live and work. The Important Places data is therefore also protected with Face ID or Touch ID in addition to the iPhone lock. If that is not enough for you, you can use the option Important Places but you can also disable it completely to be on the safe side.