When you share your location data with an app or service, you can assume that you are sharing your exact coordinates. But it is not necessary. While “exact location” sharing actually broadcasts your literal location, “approximate location” sharing only submits your general position. There’s a difference between an app knowing your home address and seeing a neighborhood or maybe even a town or city in the area you’re in. This is a great way to balance privacy and utility: apps that don’t need that much extra location information to function simply won’t get it.
Back in January, Apple introduced new privacy settings for the iPhone: Limit a specific location. While it looks similar to the existing option detailed above, this new setting allows you to hide this location information from your cell carriers as well. That way, you can fully control how you share your location data from your iPhone: Apps that need exact coordinates, like your navigation app, can have it, while apps that only need your approximate location can have it instead—including, now, your carrier.
Unfortunately, at launch, support for specific location limits was extremely limited. Apple only opened this option to iPhones that have its proprietary C1 or C1X chip, including cellular models of the iPhone Air, iPhone 16e, and M5 iPad Pro. What’s more, only Boost Mobile users in the US had access, meaning a too much A small percentage of iPhone users in the states are able to take advantage of this new privacy measure.
Apple expanded Limit Precise Location support with iOS 26.5
That changed with iOS 26.5which Apple released this week. While the feature still only works for Boost Mobile customers in the US, Apple added the iPhone 17e to the list of supported devices. If you don’t live in the US, however, the extension is a bit more generous. Apple includes a handful of other carriers here, expanding the list to:
What do you think so far?
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Austria: A1
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Denmark: You see
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Germany: Telekom
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Ireland: Sky
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Thailand: AIS and Tru
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United Kingdom: EE, BT, and Sky
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United States: Boost Mobile
Specific location restrictions are enabled by default for all supported iPhones with these carriers. If you live in the EU or the UK, however, and you own one of these iPhones, you likely have this feature—even if your carrier isn’t listed here. Apple says With a SIM from an EU or UK carrier, you have the option to turn this feature on. Apple is rumored to be planning to roll out its next-gen cellular modem, the C2. For iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone Ultra. By the end of this year, the list of iPhones supporting this feature should be quite large.
How to manage the limit specific location
If you have the right combination of iPhone and cellular carrier, this feature is enabled by default. However, you will get an option in that Settings > Cellular > Cellular Data Options > Restrict specific location.
