[Proposal] iOS: deprecate "requestAuthorization" method in favor of "react-native-permissions"

[Agontuk]

Problem

• requestAuthorization method handles both whenInUse & always permission request. Since both logic resides in the code, you have to include both NSLocationWhenInUseUsageDescription & NSLocationAlwaysAndWhenInUseUsageDescription in info.plist file, even if you want to use only whenInUse permission. Otherwise app store will reject your app submission, you can find the specific error here iOS App Store Build Missing Purpose String #198
• There's currently no method available to check current permission status before requesting it.

Benefits of using react-native-permissions

• RNP handles whenInUse & always permission logic separately, you've to include the one you want in your Podfile.
• It already exposes a method to check current permission status
• It already has methods available for precise location introduced in iOS 14.
• It has unified API for all permissions, both for android & iOS.

Relevant issues

#185
#198
#214

These features can be implemented in this library, but it feels like reinventing the wheels when there's already a good solution available. Let me know what you think.

[fabcall]

I personally agree with this. RNPermissions is an amazing library. Dropping requestAuthorization will allow us to focus solely on Geolocation.

[Agontuk]

Right now I think we can print a warning for devs who uses requestAuthorization, telling them to use react-native-permissions. Then in a future major release, we'll drop the method completely.

[EyalPerry]

adding to the above, app store will also reject your app if you add the always in use flag and not actually use it in your app's code, which is what happened in our case. This creates a loop you can not break out of.

[Andrew-Chen-Wang]

Just wondering: has anyone tackled this yet?

[Agontuk]

This'll probably be removed in the next major release. Unfortunately I'm quite busy right now with my job, so the major version release will be a bit delayed I think.

[gustavoabel]

Do you have any update on this?
@Agontuk

[kyadalu1]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5nvMQe-fpc