(Credit: Eric Zeman/PCMag)
Apple just rolled out iOS 26.2.1, but the beta for the next version, iOS 26.3, shows that the company plans to introduce a new privacy setting for a limited number of iPhones.
Limit Precise Location will let you restrict the location data your iPhone shares with your cellular network. "With this setting turned on, some information made available to cellular networks is limited," Apple says. "As a result, they might be able to determine only a less precise location— for example, the neighborhood where your device is located, rather than a more precise location (such as a street address)."
The setting won’t affect your everyday experience or signal quality. It also doesn’t limit the precision of location data shared with emergency responders, or affect how you share location data with apps like Apple's Find My service.
As AppleInsider notes, iPhone users have long been able to limit location-data access to specific apps on their phones, but "carriers have always had full access to precise location data." This updates changes that, but only on iPhones with Apple’s C1 or C1X modem, which is currently the iPhone Air, iPhone 16e, or the cellular version of the iPad Pro M5. (For once, having the best new iPhone doesn’t get you access to the newest features.)
The first US carrier to support the feature is Boost Mobile; there's no word if the big three will follow suit. Limit Precise Location will also be available from a handful of carriers in Germany, Thailand, and the UK.