"Limit precise location": What Apple's mobile security feature can do
With iPhone 16e, 17e and Air, Apple has introduced new privacy features with its own C1 and C1X modems. This is what's behind it.
Cell tower in Bremen: Apple modems play "hide and seek".
(Image: Andreas Wilkens / heise medien)
For many years, Apple has been tinkering with its own modem chips, and now C1 and C1X respectively are included in five different devices: iPhone 16e (C1), 17e and Air (C1X each), as well as iPad Pro M5 and iPad Air M4 (C1X each). With the mobile communication components, Apple also has more control over which data flows to the providers. The first example of this is a new function called "limit precise location for mobile networks". However, Apple has so far only spoken cautiously about the feature.
For all carriers, default at Telekom
In a support document, it states that "limit precise location" improves "your location privacy by reducing the precision of location data available to mobile networks". Carriers should only be able to determine the district in which the user is located, instead of the street and house number, for example. The setting "has no impact on signal quality or your user experience," Apple continues. In emergency calls, precise location data should be transmitted. The iPhone manufacturer further writes that the function has nothing to do with the usual location services via GPS and WLAN.
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What is finally interesting about "limit precise location" is that Apple only activates the function by default for individual mobile network providers, but not for others – in Germany, it is immediately available at Telekom, for reasons yet unknown. Initially, observers had therefore assumed that the function might not be available for all networks. But that is not the case: it is fully controlled by the C1 and C1X, and carriers have no influence, as Telekom confirmed to Mac & i. Apple now also writes that the "limit precise location" function is available throughout the EU and Great Britain, provided a SIM or eSIM is inserted. Other countries mentioned by Apple are Thailand and the USA. How it looks in Switzerland remained unclear at first.
Signal changes allow location restriction
According to Telekom, the procedure used by Apple is so-called Timing Advance Randomization, or TAR for short. This process uses signal changes to prevent attempts at precise location triangulation via the existing mobile phone masts. Since network operators engage in brisk trade with such data in many regions, Apple's approach is commendable.
The function has been available since iOS 26.3 with the mentioned devices. Whether it could also be activated for non-Apple modems remains open. Observers hope that Apple will finally incorporate C1 and C1X (or their successors) into Macs as well.
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