Short answer: the permission screen is not a slider from off to full. Several of these options look like mild and strong versions of the same thing, but they are genuinely different behaviours — and one of them, Background App Refresh, is not a permission at all.
Location: four options, three different meanings
| Option | What it actually does |
|---|---|
| Never | The app cannot read your location at all, foreground or background |
| Ask Next Time Or When I Share | No standing permission; iOS prompts each time the app asks |
| While Using the App | Location is available while the app is on screen; it stops when you switch away or lock the phone |
| Always | The app can read location in the background, including when closed |
The important line is between the bottom two. While Using already stops when you leave the app — so it is not a weak version of Always, it is a different thing: "you may know where I am while I am looking at you."
Choose Always only when the app's job happens without you watching: navigation that continues with the screen off, a delivery tracker, an activity recorder. For everything else, While Using does the same job whenever the app is actually in front of you.
Precise Location is a separate toggle under the same screen. Off means the app gets an approximate position (roughly neighbourhood-level) instead of exact coordinates. Weather, local news, and store finders work fine with it off. Ride-hailing and navigation need it on.
Photos: "limited" is a real answer, not a half-measure
When an app asks for photo access you get three choices — select photos, allow all, or deny. Choosing Select Photos grants access only to what you pick, and the app cannot see the rest of your library.
This is not a compromised middle ground. It is the correct answer for the common case: a chat app that needs to send one photo, a form that needs one upload. The app gets exactly what you handed it and nothing else, and you can change the selection later under Settings → Privacy & Security → Photos.
There is a real trade-off to know: some apps legitimately want to show you your own library inside their interface (a photo editor browsing by album, a backup tool scanning everything). Those will keep asking for full access, and for those apps granting it is reasonable. The point is that it should be a decision, not a default you accept to make a dialog go away.
Background App Refresh is not a permission
This is the most common confusion on the screen. Background App Refresh lives under Settings → General, not under Privacy, and it is not something an app requests — it is a system-wide allowance you set per app.
What it controls: whether an app may wake briefly in the background to fetch new content. What it does not control:
- Push notifications. Those arrive through Apple's push service regardless of this switch. Turning it off does not stop messages from arriving.
- Location access. Separate permission, separate switch.
- Whether the app works. A disabled app simply refreshes when you open it instead.
Turning it off for most apps is reasonable and saves a little power. Turning it off will not explain a notification problem, and it will not "lock down" an app in any meaningful security sense.
Offload vs delete
Both free space, and they do not do the same thing:
- Offload App removes the app but keeps its documents and data. Reinstalling restores your state — which is why iOS offloads automatically when storage runs low rather than deleting.
- Delete App removes the app and its data together. iOS warns you first.
Neither one removes what the app stores on its own servers. That is why deleting and reinstalling a messaging app usually signs you straight back in — your account, and everything in it, was never on the phone.
To review everything at once: Settings → Privacy & Security lists each permission category with the apps that hold it, which is a faster way to audit than opening apps one by one.