iOS Location Permissions request not expressive enough

  1. SDK Version: 36
  2. Platforms: iOS

Hello there,

I’m trying to build a little weather based alarm clock app, and I require the user’s location in order to fetch relevant weather data for the user. However, I’ve been rejected from the Apple app store, because… “We continue to find that your app requests the user’s consent to access their location but does not clarify the use of the location in the applicable purpose string.” Currently, I prime the user with a modal before requesting location data explaining why, but apparently Apple’s actual problem has to do with the language on the system dialogue that opens requesting permission for location data.

To be fair, the subtext there doesn’t really provide any benefit - it’s literally the exact same words as above without the quotes. My question is two parts:

  1. Has anyone else run into this? I find it hard to believe no one else has built something using geolocaiton permissions, is it possibly Apple is just arbitrarily enforcing this?
  2. I am relatively sure from reading the docs (https://docs.expo.io/versions/latest/sdk/permissions/) that there’s no way I can change that permission request language for the system dialogue. Did I miss something? If not, is that a reasonable feature request? I would assume Apple wouldn’t reject something that said “Dawn Treader needs your location to provide accurate weather forecasts” etc.

Thanks!

Hey @sgardn04,

You can configure the permission dialog strings by following this guide: Deploying to App Stores - Expo Documentation

Sorry if this wasn’t easy to find or clear. I’d welcome any input you have on what we could change to the docs to help make this easier to find/understand.

Cheers,
Adam

1 Like

Arg that’s totally reasonable, classic case of skimming the documentation instead of reading it thoroughly. Thanks for your prompt response!

No worries. We’ve all done that haha.

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