The company says a fix is already on its way

Oct 20, 2015 08:39 GMT  ·  By

If you’re an iPhone owner and using the Facebook app on a regular basis, you’ve probably noticed a dramatic drop in battery life on your phone in the last few days.

Although at first glance it’s not very clear what is happening, it turns out that the Facebook app is the one at fault for the significantly decreased battery life because, as some users claim, the background location tracking runs all the time and is no longer properly optimized for the iPhone.

In case you’re already thinking that Facebook might be spying on you, it doesn’t, and the background location tracking is actually being used by the app to keep track of the places you’ve visited, and if you want this, to share your location on your timeline. Additionally, certain services that are bundled into Facebook, Messenger, or Instagram also need to know your location.

No workarounds

Disabling location tracking from the app doesn’t seem to make a difference, users report, and The Guardian has come across a Reddit discussion where users blast Facebook for bundling a background location tracking service that’s very similar to the one used by VoIP services that need to stay always on in order to receive calls at any time.

“VoIP apps like Skype or something similar are allowed to run in the background without the background refresh enabled, because how else would you receive calls without the app open? Facebook uses this to run all of its traffic through, not just the Facebook calls included in the app,” one user is quoted as saying.

Users claim that, no matter the settings, Facebook still drain most of the battery, and there are reports that sometimes it could take up to 20 percent of all power without opening the app a single time. That’s why many believe it’s the location tracking service, but the company itself says that’s not the case.

Facebook is already working on a fix, it has confirmed, but no specific dates have been provided.

“We’re looking into this and hope to have a fix in place soon.”

And yet, there’s no workaround available at this moment, so the only solution for the moment is to either turn off location services completely from Settings > Privacy > Location services, or to remove the Facebook app and use the browser version until a fix lands.