Apple recently updated Find My, its popular geolocation app. Some people have welcomed the change, but others have raised concerns.
With the new iOS 27 developer beta, released Monday, Find My users can now temporarily hide their location from certain people without notifying them.
As MacRumors first reported, a “Hide Location” option appears on the user’s Find My card in the People section under “My Location.” The user can temporarily hide their location for 12 hours, after which it reverts to its previous shared-location state. When enabled, another button appears labeled “Unhide Location.”
The iOS 27 update includes several new features, such as improved AI for Siri and new child-safety tools. However, Apple did not mention the Find My update in its official online announcement.
Apple released Find My Friends in October 2011 as part of its iOS 5 announcement. The feature, previously only available as a download from the App Store, became a built-in, unremovable app starting with iOS 9. In September 2019, Apple combined Find My Friends and Find My iPhone into a single app called Find My with the release of iOS 13.
Experts believe the new update will likely get mixed reactions.
“By letting users choose specific people, this can help teenagers and others. Parents or spouses can still see where the user is, but access can be removed from people who do not need to know certain locations,” said Kyle Verry, vice president of strategic partnerships at IntraTEM, a technology platform. “All features have massive pros and cons lists; this is no exception.”
Currently, Find My lets users stop others from seeing their location while still viewing others’ locations. However, users must manually turn location sharing back on, and the other person gets a notification when this happens.
Before iOS 27, users could choose to share their location with someone for an hour, a day, or indefinitely.
In recent years, location-sharing apps like Apple’s Find My have sparked discussions about privacy, surveillance, and relationship boundaries. Some people use these apps to check on loved ones’ safety, while others choose not to use them.
