I always have the blue arrow Icon on Dynamic island. Is it possible to make it invisible?
Hi @feron!
In Arc Timeline app, you can go into the Settings tab → Privacy Settings, and scroll down to “Status Bar Location Indicator”.
This is turned off by default, but for the sake of battery life it’s better to have it turned on.
For Arc Recorder app, you can’t turn it off, because Arc Recorder uses only Apple’s newest APIs, and Apple are edging towards taking away the ability for apps to opt out of the blue status indicator.
Part of that “edging towards” was introduced in iOS 16.4, in that they made it much less energy efficient, if you opted out of the blue indicator. For the app to continue recording location when the indicator is turned off, the app needs to use less efficient settings. An absurd decision by Apple, but one that I also don’t see them backing down from.
If you want to both get rid of the annoying indicator, and get the best battery life / energy efficiency, then I recommend contacting Apple and complaining about what they’ve done. They’ve pushed us into a lose-lose situation, unfortunately, and only they have the power to correct that.
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Hi Matt
Thank you for your answer. That’s right what you say. In Arc Timeline It works with that setting, but not in Arc Recorder. Since I installed Arc Recorder I can see that Icon. Then I will leave it there. Hopefully Apple will correct that in the future, so that blue arrow will invisible in the future.
Best
feron
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I just found the new arc recorder and learned the advantage compared to arc mini, whlie I just deleted it and use back to arc mini just because I really don’t the blue arrow, lol, hope it be solved by Apple very soon
@hutudaxian Unfortunately I don’t think there’s much hope. This is the kind of thing that Apple double down on, instead of walking back from.
The only way it’s going to get fixed is by having enough people complain about it. And given that this is a fairly niche problem, only affecting people who use all-day location recording apps like Arc… I don’t have much hope.
But even so, we have to at least try! So if it does bother you, please do contact Apple about it! Send them feedback, and let them know that you really hate that indicator and want it gone.
I think the ideal would be a setting for each app, inside Settings app’s location privacy settings. If we could say “Don’t show that annoying indicator for this app” in there, it would satisfy both Apple’s privacy concerns and our own UX desires.
Understood: fix needs to come from Apple. What is the best way to send such feedback to Apple?
I see Product Feedback - Apple , but not generic support
Is it an idea to add Shortcut support for the Arc Editor so that the Arc Editor setting can be changed using a Shortcut (to enable/disable dynamic island location indicator)? I.e. have it disabled by default but use a Shortcut to enable it when the battery is below e.g. 20%.
Related: the new Arc Editor (beta) does not have settings yet, right? When I press the gear icon I see a debug info screen.
@wivaku I’m not actually sure whether the setting results in worse battery life anymore. I personally have the setting on in Arc Timeline (showing the indicator), and haven’t tested Arc Timeline with it turned off recently. My suspicion is that Apple worked around the excessive battery use on their side.
I’ve toggled it off on my phone now, and will see how battery consumption goes.
For Shortcuts support for the toggle, Arc Timeline app is in maintenance mode now - it doesn’t get new features. Arc Editor is already the better app, albeit still missing a bunch of features. So all work goes into getting Arc Editor up to feature parity now.
I think one of those feedback options will be the main way. Just a matter of picking the right product. And… none of them look like even vaguely relevant. Hmm. There’s got to be some generic feedback pathway. I’ll keep looking…
I’m not going to put the toggle into Arc Recorder or Arc Editor. For more details on why, this reply in another thread goes into more detail: New app: Arc Timeline Recorder, now live on the App Store! - #23 by matt
@matt This is one of the reasons I love Arc: the personal attention from you. Thanks!
Arc Timeline in maintenance mode: understood.
For both Arc Recorder and the new Arc Editor will not get the toggle: understood.
Double check: the icon that is now shown in the dynamic island, is that a generic “iOS location tracking indicator” because you need to use constant high-accuracy background location tracking?
Feedback: I agree with your low expectations of Apple listening to us, but that should not stop us from trying. 
I guess everyone on iOS beta could use Apple Feedback app.
E.g.
- type:
iOS & iPadOS - please provide a descriptive title for your feedback:
allow iOS setting for specific app: don’t show location tracking icon in dynamic island - which area are you seeing an issue with:
something else nog on this list - what type of feedback are you reporting:
suggestion
For the description I guess something like:
- good that location indicator is enabled in dynamic island by default for apps tracking location constantly
- sometimes the user is fully aware of the app tracking the location constantly
and constantly seeing the icon is unwanted - request: add iOS setting for those apps “don’t show location indicator”
- this so the user can decide how best to use the dynamic island real estate,
without compromising privacy / security
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Thanks!
I’m going off on a tangent here, but this is also one of the reasons why I much prefer having a public support forum instead of email support. With this public forum we get to see each other’s replies, past discussions, etc. It’s a much richer and more informative way to do it. Whereas email support means the only way you learn anything is by asking privately, even though you might be asking something that’s been asked before, and lead to a rich discussion.
A lot of companies will do a support forum and email support, but then decide not to staff the forum. So it ends up being purely user discussion, with people asking questions then other users answering “We’ve kind of guessed the answer might be Thing, but no one official has replied yet.” I’ve never understood why they do that. Their support staff have to answer the same questions over and over via email support, while users would prefer just one answer in public!
Yep. But I was just thinking the other day, what if Arc provided a … what’s it called, a Live Activity to go in the dynamic island, presumably that’d replace that default location icon. And that way at least it could show something useful, instead of that utterly useless “something’s using location” indicator.
I’m going to add that to the todos. Though low priority, given that no one’s ever asked for a Live Activity. But … lots of people have expressed hatred of the location indicator, so I guess tangentially there has been high demand for something better. Though replacing it with a potentially informationally useful Live Activity isn’t quite what people have been asking for 
Yeah I ended up thinking that too. On macOS it’s actually still showing up as available to use, even though I’m not on a beta anymore. I’ll check on my phone… Hmm, nope, it’s gone from there. So if not on an iOS beta the feedback app disappears. But at least it looks like it sticks around on macOS. That’s something.
Excellent description!
I thought that Arc Editor was effectively Arc Timeline 4.x yet was named Editor to keep it separate during testing. If such is the case then perhaps that makes intentions clear.
Btw I asked Perplexity what might be a good name. Various suggestions with one that I kinda like. Not sure; perhaps a slight renaming could help : Arc Atlas?
Yeah Arc Editor is essentially Arc Timeline v4. Though the initial intention was to have both on the App Store for at the same time, until Arc Editor has all the same features as Arc Timeline and is ready to replace it completely. But I think I’ll just call it v4, or rename the old app possibly.
For the name, I think it’ll make most sense to stick with the existing name, Arc Timeline. That’s got the most name recognition.
This will be a cool method to temporarily solve the blue arrow proble! For example, displaying the motion status or stationary like what Arc timeline widget do. It can be a default turned off feature.
One more question, now I have arc timeline, arc recorder and arc editor, how they work togehter, compete GPS&battery, or collaborative work?
Arc Timeline and Arc Recorder work together, with only one of them actively recording at a time, and both recording to the same database.
Arc Editor has a separate database, with no Arc Recorder companion yet. So it will be recording in parallel to whichever of the other two is active. Though eventually (possibly soon) I’ll switch Arc Recorder over to being a backup for Arc Editor instead of Arc Timeline.
For battery consumption, I wouldn’t worry about it. When they’re in the background recording they use very little battery. The only time they use significant battery is when they’re in the foreground, updating the map, loading and processing data, etc. One minute of screen time could use more energy than several hours of recording in the background.
So basically if you’re only interacting with the apps as much as usual in the foreground, with no extra foreground time each day, there should be very little change in battery use regardless of which ones are running. All that really matters is whether you play around with any of the apps in the foreground for 5 minutes a day or 50 minutes.