How do I turn off WiFi 'location accuracy' nonsense nag?

Location services work (GPS) within 5.97' 95% of the time with WiFi off (https://www.gps.gov/systems/gps/performance/accuracy/#:~:text=The%20government%20provides%20the%20GPS,interval%2C%20with%2095%25%20probability )., saying that they can't really work without WIFi is nonsense. If you can't figure out where you are on the road outside of +/- 6' who freaking cares? I'm on the same road, going the same direction. Can a Door Dash guy determine if I am in the bedroom or living room when I placed my order? maybe not, maybe so, but can they determine what HOUSE I'm in 100% of the time? Absolutely!

In fact, the WiFi won't help improve the accuracy without accurate maps of where all the hotspots are located, and how could they get those? by using the GPS with it and triangulating the numbers, and that only works if you can get a bunch of people to turn on WIFi and they can grab that data. The WiFi hotspots don't often move, and that allows them to avoid issues with selective availability which they turn on from time to time (it moves the location randomly around a given point for non military use. You can remove that if you use WiFi and know where all the hotspots are. (but they are only good for maybe 1600' so you have to be near several that you know the fixed location of for it to work.) (Sorry to be calling BS on your answer, Software Architect reply with 40+ years experience working with computers, and RF Radios... Including GPS and WiFi)

To be fair, Google is collecting the WIFi locations using their roaming cars that create the street views, so Apple doesn't need to be collecting that data from the phones.. Of course, Google is using GPS to determine where the car is..

@Lawerence Finch: In reference to the duplicate address: This can't be solved, sorry. The issue is that the application (outside of my network) checks to see what IP that request is coming from. I also have that application running in my house. If I'm connected to my home WIFi, then It will route packets out that Router (using NAT, or Network Address Translation), which makes all the requests come from the same IP address, which is the IP that that router is assigned on the network. I could 'solve' the issue by changing my phone to not auto-connect when WiFi is turned on, making it a 2 step process when I need to connect to it due to crappy T-Mobile service in my area (118K/sec, but that is another issue - and that is 5G 'speed', note: not Megabytes/sec, Kilobytes!)

I would prefer to be able to switch it on, use it for a while, and switch it off.

The App I use (incorrectly, granted) assumes that if I'm coming from the same IP, I must be the same person.

(the router correctly NAT's that connection back to the Phone or the computer that originated the request, so everything is configured perfectly correctly... I've been doing router configuration for 20+ years too...)

I will bet you $10,000.00 that if I pull out my phone, sitting at my desk the location services will tell me where I am right now... and I'm sitting in the center of my house. Now, OK, if the phone was unable to get a lock on 3 or more satellites and could not determine the location, then AND ONLY THEN it should popup a message that said something like "Unable to get location using satellites, if you enable WiFi we can get an approximate location.) Btw: the GPS is BETTER than WiFi, so the original message is wrong anyway - it should say it allows you to get a location when you can't using GPS.

But, Yes, depending on the quality of the GPS receiver you have, you might not be able to get a location... In fact, the original iPhone 1 had some issues with this, but I've not had any issue with the iPhone 8 that I was using up to last week when I upgraded to the 14 Pro Max...

PS: Just checked Google Maps, it nailed the location where I am, within a few feet, showing where in the house I am... If you decided to take the bet, you lost.. :-)

PPS: https://www.scienceabc.com/innovation/how-does-turning-on-wifi-improve-the-location-accuracy-of-a-device.html

This shows you how it actually works to 'improve accuracy' If you think about it, you have some number of WiFi hotspots within your 1600' range, computing within a 6' range where you are in that series of intersecting circles isn't going to be easy without signal strength, and according to the article, that isn't used, just the list of SSIDs that are in the area. Ooh, that would be a cool test, turn off the GPS and just use WiFi and see how accurate your location actually is!

I might add that with the iPhone 14 (or latest watch), Apple is now using Dual Frequency GPS, this has an accuracy of "High-end users boost GPS accuracy with dual-frequency receivers and/or augmentation systems. These can enable real-time positioning within a few centimeters, and long-term measurements at the millimeter level." Which means that you are talking about +/- 1" or so (2.54 cm), and long term accuracy of maybe 1/25th of an inch? WiFi can't compete with that!

So, how accurate do you NEED to be to say where the photo was taken? It can determine which side of my mouse I was holding the phone on when I snapped the photo.... All, WITHOUT WiFi..

It is a useless popup, and needs to be removed. And it is also lying to me, as no, WiFi can't improve over +/- 1 mm that my phone can do. (iPhone 14 Pro Max)

Also, with the dual frequency GPS, it will be even less likely that you will be unable to get those signals, as maybe one frequency is blocked, but if the other one is getting through you are good. And you can remove a satellite where you are getting 2 different locations (due to one frequency being reflected off something and the other one not - which it should be able to figure out if it is getting reflected as the frequencies won't reflect exactly the same, which will give you one of them indicating the correct position (non-reflected) and the other one being off compared to the other satellites, which is why you can compute your location so accurately. This is a 'small matter of programming' as I always say, and I'm sure Apple has already done that.

So, in any case, the time has come to dump this popup.. Apple has made it completely obsolete at this point .

In my case, 99.999% of the time - for example, when I'm driving, I have the WIFi off, and have never had it unable to figure out where I'm at while driving. At least, not in the last 13 years. To be fair, back when the radio in the phone rather sucked by today's standards (iPhone 3) I did have some issues where I'd have to be standing on top of a building hoping I could pick up another signal to lock the location...

Now, what does leaving your phone's WiFi cost you? It runs your battery down quicker. Not sure about current tech (I expect it is true though, but less noticeable due to better battery life), but in the past for sure, if it was having trouble connecting to a WiFi hotspot, it would ramp up the power of the receiver to allow it to get a wider range for the signals. This on the iPhone 3 would burn so much power that the battery would die in about half the time it would normally take. Now, today, this isn't as needed as tech has improved a LOT in 13 years...

But, yes, I gave the (VERY RARE INDEED!) situation where you can not get a GPS signal... In an elevator, for example... But, if you were say, in an elevator in a hospital, you might have 3 WiFi hotspots - the same SSID for 10 locations as they repeat it all over the place... and all you would be able to determine is you are somewhere in the hospital - Assuming that the WiFi wasn't blocked by the metal box you are in.. And, yeah, all signals are blocked pretty much 100% by that, as was determine by Michael Faraday ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faraday_cage )

but, being as I have not needed that turned on in 13 years seems like, maybe, just maybe, it might be nice to have an option to turn it off??

I expect that over 124,232,543 times people have had to click the 'OK button to close the dialog, with 0 value for having been informed for the 485th time of something that, well, isn't actually true as worded, could be improved if you clicked on the settings button instead

(based on 2.24 Billion iPhones that have been sold, and at least a 0.1% having turned off WiFi, and an average of maybe 100 times they had to click on the dialog...)

It is annoying, it is (now) useless, and it ****** me off every time I see it... AND it is a SUPER EASY thing to fix!!

(And yeah, if you want to do the math, it really comes out to 220,000,000 times someone would have had to click the OK button)

I have now :-). Thanks for the link, I didn't know about that one