Suppose you’re managing a small to midsize business (SMB) that wants to launch an app—either for customers or for your own employees. You decide to add location data information to this app, and you research how to create a location for your app.

That’s when you realize that this is no small task.

Location functionality and its associated issues are a common theme among our SMB clients at Soluntech. This article focuses on how to make a location-based app that uses location data wisely. Specifically, there are three major issues that often plague companies when they attempt to develop location functionality in their apps.

When you partner with us for app development consultation services, you’ll get a much more granular look at the considerations for your specific development project.

1. Privacy Is Important

The first and biggest issue is in some ways a non-technical one. A user’s location is private information. We live in a time when the cultural pendulum has swung far toward the direction of consumer convenience and away from personal privacy. So, today, most mobile users and many desktop users consider it no big deal to disclose their location data to an app because these apps provide services that consumers either want or need.

This is a mixed blessing for developers. For the time being, when you’re thinking about how to create a location for your app, you can take advantage of users’ permissive attitudes and make extensive use of their location without losing many users who refuse to supply their location info. But there are risks.

How to Do Privacy Right

Privacy-related problems have actionable solutions when you’re planning out how to make a location-based app:

• Decide when and how often your app needs to collect location data—if it even needs it at all. If it does, you still probably don’t need to gather location information all the time. Less is more.

• Offer an opt-in experience. Helpfully and transparently explain to the user what information you are collecting and why. Make the user feel in control of their experience.

• Use less granular geolocation information whenever possible. If you only need to know the general location of a user, don’t track down their position to within a few feet. 

• Strategize on whether your app can offer a useful “no-location” mode as a fallback option for situations when location data is not available or when users prefer not to disclose it.

• Make sure your code meets all legal–regulatory requirements regarding privacy. Consult with in-house or outside counsel when in doubt.

2. Battery Usage Is Your Major Constraint

There is a direct tradeoff between having access to frequent, accurate location data and depleting phone battery (or tablet or laptop battery). This is one of the most important points in learning how to create a location for your app, because high battery use reduces the use-time and utility of your service, and can even drive users away.

How to Do Battery Management Right

When you’re thinking about how to make a location-based app that doesn’t waste power, here are some best practices:

• Collect the least granular geolocation data you need. Don’t tap into GPS / A-GPS if you don’t need it.

• Collect the least frequent geolocation data you need. Very few apps require this information continuously.

• Don’t update needlessly. If other apps on a user’s device are also collecting location information, your app can look for that information before conducting its own geolocation process.

• Program different use case modes into your app, so that more power-intensive operations can be confined to only those use cases that absolutely need them.

• Always rigorously test your app’s battery performance for all use cases (or as many as you can reasonably test) on a variety of different devices.

For coding geolocation collection functions, Android’s Battery Optimization Guide is a good starting point and reference for structuring your location data code and generally figuring out the ropes on how to make a location-based app that’s effective and sustainable. (Apple also has a guide.)

3. Accuracy & Precision Will Be a Struggle

When you’re working out how to create a location for your app, accuracy and precision frequently come up as the biggest struggle. (We will refer to both of these using just the word “accuracy.”) As we discussed, lower battery usage reduces accuracy, but even if we forget about battery usage, sometimes accurate location data just isn’t easy to come by.

• Dense urban settings and rural locations can both reduce accuracy.

• Satellite availability will sometimes be temporarily compromised.

• Access to cell towers and other positional information sources will naturally vary by location.

Some of these problems are inherently temporary while others may be a permanent characteristic of a specific location. When you’re thinking about how to make a location-based app, it pays to think about your app’s services in terms of where and how those services are likely to be used.

How to Do Accuracy Right

Your app needs to anticipate reasonable occurrences of these problems.

• Consider what alternatives are worth implementing. Is a lower-accuracy mode possible? Can certain features still function without location data, at least temporarily?

• Favor the lower-accuracy solution by default. When it comes to best practices for how to make a location-based app, structure your code so that it performs effectively using less granular data whenever feasible.

• When low-accuracy means of geolocation are not providing reliable information, temporarily supplement them with high-accuracy sources (like GPS) to preserve vital functionality.

• Make use of supplementary geolocation sources like RFID location tags and indoor Bluetooth location beacons when they are available. These location data technologies are often found in shopping and conference centers, office blocks, and urban core districts.

• Don’t forget older and less capable devices. When thinking about how to create a location for your app, remember that older phones may not have access to some of the tech that you are using. Make sure you don’t lose core functionality in older devices.

Get a Consultation on Your Project

When it comes to figuring out how to make a location-based app that meets your app’s strategic goals and provides value to the end user, Soluntech is a natural choice to partner with you in bringing everything together.

Whether you’re working on location data challenges, app security issues, usability and functionality considerations, future-proofing and scalability, or any other aspect of development, we are here to help you. See our full range of services to learn more.

Our full-stack, end-to-end app development consultation services and app auditing services can help your SMB move your app forward from conception, to development, to rollout, to regular maintenance. Get started now with a free 30-minute pre-consultation.

[Learn More] [Schedule Pre-Consultation]