For years, I’ve used an app called Day One to create journal entries. One of the features that I really like is that I can enable Location History tracking, which makes note of every location that I’ve stopped at for more than a few minutes. I can then create journal entries for those locations, which is something that I love to do, especially when traveling. For the last few months I’ve noticed that the location history is lacking, and missing huge amounts of data for locations that I’ve visited. I assumed that Day One relies upon Apple’s background location tracking for this, and it was confirmed by them that this is the case.
When I say that data is missing, I mean large chunks. For instance, I’m in France at the moment and last night I went to a language exchange meetup from 7:30pm to 11:30pm, and there was absolutely no record of me having left my apartment. The last location entry for the day was 12:30pm when I’d returned from the butcher shop.
I don’t know if the lack of location data coincides with my upgrade to an iPhone 16, or if it’s coincidental, but I never had this issue with any of my previous iPhones. Other than disable location tracking and re-enable it in both the app and the iOS system, and do a hard-reset of the phone, I don’t know of anything else that I can attempt that might resolve the issue.
Do you have settings / privacy & security / location services / system services / significant locations turned on? In fact, on my phone all of those settings above significant locations is turned on, but I’m not sure that matters as much.
I use an app called Geofency to track how long I’ve been at a client (it tracks everything but I can set locations as significant). I haven’t updated it in a long time, but my 13 Mini is updated to iOS 18.
It does fail at times - not often! and I used to go into the phones location history to jog my memory.
Except I can no longer see the location history. I can see there are over 100 records since Dec 25, I can see where I was for an hour yesterday, and I can clear the history that I can’t see.
So I would either try a new app for location, or chalk it up to a change in Apple’s handling of location history :(
BTW I love what you’re doing, I’ve done that in the past but not with a journaling app! :)
I would lay the blame at the feet of Day One. I’ve also been a user for years, and their updates lately have been both buggy and misguided. There are plenty of apps that rely on location services and I think we’d have heard about it if it were generally not working.
In the category of misguided, check the newish Day One setting that automatically applies points of interest to your location data. When this is on, which it is by default, the app will retroactively change the location data of your entries. Perhaps this is part of what you’re experiencing.
@bb1, I did reach out to Day One, and for a few days we went back and forth with me explaining the issues that I’m having, and all that I’ve done in an attempt to resolve the issues. They claimed that because I’m getting some location history, the problem is with Apple, because that’s where they pull their data from. They clamined that they can’t do anything for me.
In iOS 18.3.1, when I go into System Settings → Privacy & Security → Location Services → System Services → Significant Locations; I see 321 records stored between December 25 and February 18. Under Recent Records there’s only a single entry fro “Home” and nothing else. So perhaps, my phone isn’t recording locations as it should. I have no idea.
Yes, Apple has borked something, it would appear. I’m “glad” that I’m in good company and not the only one having or experiencing this issue, though I am sorry that it is happening.
The only other relevant thing that I can think of is Settings / Privacy & Security / Location Services/ Day One - I have it set to “Always” and “Precise Location”. But honestly I assume that Day One support would have had you check for that.
But here is an example of my last day in St Maarten a few weeks ago. It’s spot on - I went out for a run at about 6:30 am EST, I went to the beach at Mary’s Boon, the Burger King entry is actually the grocery store next door to the Burger King, and Mr Chow was the restaurant attached to the one I actually went to, Roma.
I have noticed that if I don’t spend a significant amount of time in a place - say, at least 10 minutes, such as when I go to the post office to send a package - it won’t always show up, but it’s always been that way for me. It’s nothing new.
And that’s how mine used to look, but as mentioned, it’s now considerably shorter. As mentioned, I was out in the same location last night from 7pm to 11pm, in a bar, sitting within a few feet of a window, and it didn’t register, at all. I’ve had very similar situations that simply don’t register. I’d love to be able to see what location information/data Apple is capturing, but I’m unaware of how to do so.
15 Pro / 18.3.1 - though that particular day I was still on 18.2.1, but, still, my daily lists are the same as they have always been with the upgrades to 18.3 and 18.3.1 since then.
Have you tried deleting the app and reinstalling it?
