IOS 15 released in Japan on September 21, 2021. iOS is the OS for the iPhone, but the latest version, iOS 15, has many useful new features.
One of the things that made me very happy was that the standard iPhone "Photos" app can now handle Exif data. Finally, it can be said, but this makes iPhone photography even more convenient.
Exif data is shooting-related data that is recorded in a photo (image) when taken with a digital camera. The camera model, lens, shutter speed, aperture value, and of course the shooting date and time are also included. Also, photos taken with a smartphone camera include shooting location information (depending on the settings).
Such Exif data is used in various ways to increase user convenience. For example, the photos in the smartphone are arranged in the order of shooting (time series) because the shooting date and time Exif data is used. Or, when searching for "where did you take this picture?", Exif data is often used.
It looks like you are browsing photos taken with your iPhone with the photo app. The photos are arranged in order of shooting date and time because they are sorted based on the Exif data recorded in the photos. If the location information (GPS data) is recorded in the photo in the iPhone settings, you can search for the photo from the shooting position. It's also easy to find out the shooting position from the photo.It's useful Exif data, but it can also be risky in terms of privacy. For example, if you send a photo with location information Exif data to someone, you can clearly see "when and where" the photo was taken (Exif data may be automatically deleted depending on the application such as sending the photo). = In that case, the other party does not know the shooting date and position).
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If you don't want to know such information from a photo, you need to delete the Exif data from the photo before sending it. But before, I needed an app for editing Exif data to do that.
So why not record Exif data in a photo in the first place?
Certainly, if you do so, information such as the shooting date and time and the shooting position will not be added to the photo. However, it is not possible to set the iPhone or digital camera to not record Exif data at all (there may be a strange model that can do it).
However, you can set it so that location information (GPS data) is not recorded as Exif data for photos. For iPhone, set "Allow use of location information" to "None" in Settings> Privacy> Location services> Camera (or shooting app). With this, the location information will not be recorded in the picture taken. It is also possible to share only the photo without including the location information by setting the option when sharing the photo.
However, if you do not record the location information, it can be quite inconvenient. This is because it is not possible to search for a photo from the map (shooting position), and there is no big clue to specify the shooting position when asking "Where did you take this photo?".
And the iOS 15 photo app. The above problems have been resolved. You can now delete / add location information as needed, or change the shooting date and time.
The merit is that you can easily change (delete) the location information and shooting date and time from the photos you send, and "protect your privacy". Alternatively, it is possible to improve the "ease of search" by adding location information and the shooting date and time to the received photo or the photo read from the digital camera.