I gave up on Arc 4 after a few weeks because the location bar was too distracting. This week, I came up with a compromise. I made a shortcut that opens the app and sends an alert to remind me to turn off tracking when I’m home and another one to turn it back on when I leave the house.
That way I can have the location tracking on when I’m not using the phone much throughout the day and also avoid seeing the bar (and the location icon next to the clock) when I’m home.
That being said, could you maybe think about adding an option so that Arc stops nagging me about changing the setting back to Always?
If you can think of a better way, such as adding a way for Shortcuts to turn off location tracking by itself without needing to click the option manually, that would also be pretty great.
Thanks for everything.
That’s a genuinely clever workaround — a leave-home automation to cycle recording is a creative way to get the best of both.
Some good news that might make it unnecessary before long: we’ve been working on removing the persistent location indicator entirely, and it’s looking very promising in testing so far. Barring surprises in the final stages, it should be arriving in an upcoming release. With a bit of luck, that means recording can just stay on full time, with no Dynamic Island reminder that it’s there.
On the “change it back to Always” nagging: that one is iOS itself, not Arc. iOS periodically re-confirms that you still want an app to have Always permission, on its own schedule and its own heuristics. There’s unfortunately no setting on our side (or any app’s) that can quiet it.
A Shortcuts action to toggle recording directly is a fair ask though — Shortcuts/App Intents integration is on the to-do list (BIG-588), and a recording on/off action would be a natural fit there.
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That’s great to hear about the location bar. I really thought there was no hope at all. I’ll keep using my overly complicated Shortcuts and keep an eye out for future updates.
If you ever need a beta user who’ll complain about every little thing, I’m here.
Thanks for the hard work as always!
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Me too!
We went into this new round of experiments on the basis of there being a couple of new competitor apps showing up that have no location indicator, and seemed to be doing well enough with trip starts. Though we ended up realising they were likely still only relying on the iOS systems that aren’t high enough accuracy for Arc’s needs.
But at that point we decided to push on anyway, and see if we could still make it work. Worth another shot after all these years. And after a bunch of failed experiments we have landed on an arrangement that appears to be working well!
We’re getting same reliability (no app suspensions), same energy use (no higher battery drain), and with our most recent iteration of the experiment, now same data quality. Which is all the conditions that were failing previously, thus marking it “impossible”. The current experiment shape is working just as well as the currently shipped release, but with no annoying Dynamic Island location indicator 
Though yeah, still want to prove it out a couple more days in testing. But at this point looks like it’s very likely to ship in 1.5.0, coming soon 
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@plantemathieu It shipped: 1.5.0 is live on the App Store now, location indicator gone. It’s a phased rollout, so auto-update may take a few days to reach you — a manual update from the App Store gets it straight away if you’re keen. Your overly complicated Shortcuts can enjoy a well-earned retirement.
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Congratulations! I just deleted my shortcuts and it was so satisfying. It was worth the wait!
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