Points, Miles, and Martinis recently reviewed the latest edition of the Fly Delta App for iPhone. I like the Fly Delta app and use it religiously to manage my Delta flights, boarding passes, etc. However, one thing I’ve noticed since the latest update was introduced – it runs iPhone location services ALL the time. I ran a little test just to verify my suspicion that the Delta app was the cause. As you can see in this screenshot, iPhone location services is running.
I went to the location service menu and found the Delta app active in location services even though I had verified that the app was completely closed down.
I turned off location services for the Delta app, and look what happened.
For the record, I do not think Delta is tracking my whereabouts by the second! 🙂 Not that I’d care if they did. Or maybe they are tracking me to alert the bartenders when I walk into the Sky Club? I am kidding!!!! 🙂 I expect this is an issue with the app, or perhaps even just my installation. I remember a similar issue when Starwood introduced their iPhone app that was fixed shortly thereafter. It does negatively impact battery life on my already battery challenged iPhone, so I hope Delta takes a look at this soon. I really do like the Delta iPhone app, and its recent updates make it even better minus this one little problem. Anyone else experiencing this?
UPDATE: At the suggestion of reader Andy, I deleted the app, then reinstalled it. This seems to have cured the problem of driving location services 100 percent of the time.
-MJ, July 4, 2013
Well, don’t I feel not so smart. Deleting and reinstalling fixed it. I will update my post.
@Andy, I did completely close the app. I may try the uninstall/reinstall option and see if that helps.
I noticed over the weekend that I did not receive check in notices from the app either.
Follow up: I just checked my locations services, and the Fly Delta app is not running in the background. Did you open the task manager and completely close the app? Maybe try uninstalling and reinstalling.
I didn’t notice this, but I should check. It bothers me when apps do this, mainly because it runs the battery down much faster. One major thing I noticed about the Delta app is that it no longer notifies me when it is time to check in. Is this just me, or was this changed for some reason. I will still get an email (usually), but I just like getting a notification to check in. I guess it doesn’t truly matter since I get priority boarding from my Delta Platinum AMEX, but it was a nice feature.