Last Saturday afternoon, Apple released iOS 6 to the rest of the world that did not buy an iPhone 5 (it comes standard on the iPhone 5, fyi). That was on Saturday – and by the end of the weekend, it was reported that over 100 million devices had already upgraded to Apple’s latest and greatest iOS 6. Yeah… that’s adoption on a massive scale!
Well, within a few hours of the release, I started writing about iOS 6 here at Tablet Crunch. And it wasn’t long after those first articles, and me researching what other’s were saying, that I realized there were some major problems with iOS 6. And to say the least… there were a lot of former Apple fans who were less than satisfied with what iOS 6 did to their devices.
The iOS 6 was instantly creating havoc on user’s iPhone and iPad, and the from that point forward, the firestorm against Apple had begun.
iOS 6′s Dirty Little Secret
Being the kind of person that loves trouble shooting and fixing iPhone’s and iPad’s, I started figuring out solutions to some of the problems people were having like wifi connectivity problems, their app store being slow, and the near endless problems users have with Apple’s map app.
But when I started researching the interesting phenomena of users app store being slow after upgrading to iOS 6, I discovered something that Apple probably wish you’d never even known about… “Location-Based iAds.”
Sure, Apple’s been talking about iAds and how great it will be for businesses that run their ads. But what Apple never told you was that iOS 6 would literally consume every once of life your iPhone or iPad had to give in order to run the location based iAds.
Even worse, Apple never even gave you the option to have iAds enabled or disabled while you were upgrading your iPhone or iPad. Apple just forced iAds upon your phone and in doing so, created the foundation of nearly all of the problems users are currently experiencing.
The negative impact of Location-Based iAds on your iPhone or iPad:
- massive consumption of battery power
- dramatic decrease in processing resources (which means your device is now slow)
- app store is now excruciatingly slow
- invasion of your privacy in exchange for ad revenue
- and I believe, but have to prove, this is also at the core of why so many people are having WiFi connectivity issues (still working on this one)
All of the above, and more… is something that is shocking to me as a fan of Apple.
I can’t imagine Apple self imposing themselves through iAds onto your devices in exchange for user satisfaction. In fact, I would argue that this is a principle that Steve Jobs stood against in every product he ever launched.
Steve Jobs always wanted to create positive change for people society, not make decisions that ultimately took advantage of such a loyal fan base.
How to disable location based iAds
If you are interested in turning off the location based iAds, and more than likely solve 90% of the problems you are having with iOS 6, here’s how to do it:
Settings > Privacy > Location Services > System Services (all the way at the bottom) > Location-Based iAds
You’ll notice that in the screen shot of my iPhone that Genius for Apps is already disabled. This is the result of me discovering that when this feature is enabled, it causes the app store on your iPhone and iPad to slow down dramatically.
Once you are in the System Services, you’ll notice 4 of the options have the arrow that points to the upper right. These are all of the features that are powered by iOS 6′s location settings.
What do you think about iOS 6 automatically enabling Location Based iAds?
Do you think this is something that Steve Jobs would have ever condoned?
