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Comment by rwmj | Hacker News Reader

Welcome to the app for my Fujifilm camera (only required because I wanted to update the firmware) that refuses to run unless you grant fine-grained location access. After upgrading the firmware I deleted the app because it has literally no other benefit.

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Did it update the firmware over Bluetooth? Up until Android 11, Android required fine location permission to perform Bluetooth scans[1] because knowledge of nearby devices can be used to derive location.

[1] https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/connectivity/blue...

Support apps for digital cameras generally require location access since a feature that many customers want, is geotagging the photos. Only some camera models have a built-in GPS, while other models rely on the presence of a nearby smartphone to provide the coordinates for the photo. Apps are typically developed to support a whole range of models, so they need the location access to support the non-GPS-equipped models.

If (have location) then geotag Else dontgeotag

Rather than

Else quit

It’s not rocket science.

Isn't that what Apple requires apps to do by the way? Does Fujifilm have an iOS version that does that and an Android version that quits?

This was the Android version. The Apple policy sounds more sensible. Even better would be a way to fake the permission (which I understand some non-Google Android variants allow).

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