👋 HEY, IT'S RAJA

Wednesday's issue was about a privacy feature that turned out to do less than people assumed. The obvious follow-up question is which ones actually work, so here are five settings that genuinely change something.

None of them require the beta. None of them cost anything. Together they take about ten minutes, and the fifth one is the one almost nobody has opened.

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After this week you might be tempted to switch it off in disgust. Do not. Private Relay still blocks the network-level tracking it was built to block, and turning it off makes your position worse rather than better. What needs to change is the expectation, not the toggle. Treat it as tracking reduction inside Safari, not as anonymity. If you need actual anonymity, that is a VPN, and it always was.

Settings → Privacy & Security → Tracking

Switch off Allow Apps to Request to Track. This does two things at once: it automatically denies every future request, and it stops you being interrupted by the pop-up in the first place. Most people tap "Ask App Not to Track" nine times out of ten anyway, so make it the default and stop making the decision.

Settings → Privacy & Security → Location Services

Go down the list app by app. The question is not whether an app should have location; it is whether it needs precise location. A weather app, a news app, a shopping app, a social app: all of these work perfectly on approximate location, which gives them a rough area rather than your doorstep. Turn Precise Location off for everything that is not maps, navigation, or a fitness tracker recording routes.

This is the highest-value ten minutes on the list. It is also the most tedious, which is exactly why nobody does it.

Settings → Apps → Safari → Advanced

Look for Advanced Tracking and Fingerprinting Protection. By default, it is often set to Private Browsing only, which means the protection you assume you have is switched off for the browsing you actually do. Change it to All Browsing. This is the closest thing on the list to a free upgrade.

Settings → Privacy & Security → App Privacy Report

This one gives you nothing today, which is why so few people bother. Switch it on, ignore it for seven days, then come back. It logs which apps accessed your camera, microphone, photos, contacts, and location, and every domain each app contacted in the background.

Reading it the first time is genuinely uncomfortable. You will find an app you use twice a month talking to a dozen domains you have never heard of. That report is what turns privacy from an abstract worry into a short, specific list of apps to delete.

Have a great weekend. Set the App Privacy Report going before you close this email, and I will see you Monday with a new find.

Keep it useful,

Raja · The Useful Tech

P.S. Enjoyed this? Forward it to a friend who loves their Apple gear a little too much.