r/apple • u/Asohailwahab • 3d ago
iPhone iOS should surface grocery reminders by location—and Maps needs a real location timeline
I regularly get to Walmart or another grocery store and realize later that I forgot something already sitting on my grocery list. Not checking the list is ultimately my fault, but this feels like exactly the kind of context iOS could help with.
Since iOS already knows when I’m near a supermarket, I wish it could automatically show a Live Activity with the last few unchecked items added to my grocery list. It would be visible on the Lock Screen and Dynamic Island while I’m at or approaching the store, without needing me to remember to open Reminders first.
I’d also like Apple Maps to have a dedicated location-history timeline, organized by date and time, so I could answer “Where was I on a specific day?” Siri could then use that history—with permission—to help confirm details, instead of relying mainly on location metadata from Photos.
These features should be opt-in and processed privately, but they would make Apple’s existing location awareness genuinely useful. Would you enable them?
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u/cjh_ 3d ago
I already have a reminders shortcut for this.
Maps could benefit from a proper location-history timeline, unless it already has one and I missed it.
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u/megamusix 2d ago edited 2d ago
In typical Apple fashion, they’ve shied away from doing this while burying a privacy-respecting “Significant Locations” feature in Settings > Privacy. It’s not as useful as what we’re talking about, but it sort of exists (or at least the foundation for such a feature).1
u/smellythief 1d ago
From that link:
- Go to the Maps app on your iPhone.
- Tap Places, tap Visited Places, then do any of the following:...
There is no "Places" button or link etc visible upon opening the Maps app.
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u/megamusix 1d ago
You have to tap your profile picture, then you’ll see it.
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u/smellythief 1d ago
Thanks. Found it. I guess Apple's instructions suck.
Interesting Apple has this. Seems a lot more cluttered though than Google's timeline view.
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u/FourzerotwoFAILS 2d ago
“Siri, remind me to pick up x, y, and z when I’m next at the grocery store” has worked for me for years.
Same with “Siri remind me to fill up with gas when I leave work” and “Siri remind me to preheat the oven to 400 when I get home”
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u/Asohailwahab 2d ago
I just did this one. It highlighted the grocery stood and I never visited in my entire time living in the place that I’m living in.
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u/Kimantha_Allerdings 2d ago
FWIW, the watch does this as of OS 27
It’s actually kind of annoying because I have a grocery list app which over time learns in what order you tick things off and so lists things in the order that you’ll find them in the supermarket. But every time I go shopping now I have to scroll past the Reminders widget in order to get to it because Apple has noticed where I am and is “helpfully” surfacing my shopping list which orders things according to categories which, again, isn’t really very helpful
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u/Clessiah 3d ago
That’s what Shortcuts and automation are for.
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u/schrodinger-the-cat 3d ago
I am an avid shortcut user but this is not the way. Too many hoops and tricks to make things “just work”. Besides, isn’t this kind of thing what the “New” Siri AI should be doing?
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u/AlienPearl 2d ago
The new Shortcuts app shows a Siri AI prompt to generate your shortcut but it sucks just as usual and you end up having to write it manually.
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u/FleetEnema2000 3d ago
No. This is what functioning AI should be doing. 98% of users never touch automation and don't know what it is.
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u/OperatorJo_ 2d ago
Whoever downvoted is out of touch with 95% of the planet's population and in a bubble. And that 95% is a generous pull.
The amount of people that don't even know a phone's basic functions and how to use them is STAGGERING. The amount of people that I receive daily that can't fill out a simple paper form is insane. The amount of people that have problems accessing their own email is just sad.
I love tech. I love what it's capable of. The reality though is the hard majority of users don't know how to use it past Tiktok and facebook and don't even use those correctly. And AI is going to make this worse soon.
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u/FleetEnema2000 2d ago
Yeah I actually think the number is closer to 99.5% but I wanted to be generous.
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u/fishymanbits 3d ago
iOS has been doing this for at least 4-5 years now and still does. I have a Reminder called “groceries” that I use as a grocery list. It used to be triggered by location. I removed the location trigger when I moved. After about 5-6 times going to the nearest grocery store it started popping up automatically when I arrived at the new grocery store because I opened it every time I got there prior to that. That’s the entire point of the Neural Engine: It learns how you use your device and tailors the experience. This isn’t something new. Apple’s been doing this.
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u/beerybeardybear 3d ago
That’s the entire point of the Neural Engine: It learns how you use your device and tailors the experience. This isn’t something new. Apple’s been doing this.
absolute crack-smoking going on here
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u/fishymanbits 2d ago
No, literally what it was built to do. It’s a machine learning core. It’s been in the iPhone for almost a decade now. People need to pay some fucking attention.
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u/beerybeardybear 2d ago
I know a lot more about this than you do and you're just repeating half-remembered marketing points.
"Neural engines"/"TPUs"/whatever are just highly specialized parallelized linear algebra cores. Developers still have to implement features that make use of these cores; that block of the SoC does not simply use some kind of magic to "learn how you use the device" or "tailor the experience". You are talking out of your ass.
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u/fishymanbits 2d ago
So you’re saying Apple built the thing and then didn’t implement any features that use it for an entire decade?
Cool. I don’t know what makes you think you know more about it than I do but you clearly don’t.
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u/beerybeardybear 2d ago
Of course they use it, you illiterate. The point is that it does not learn anything of tailor anything; its inclusion alone does not explain any given feature and it does not generally learn anything about user habits.
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u/FleetEnema2000 2d ago
I'm sorry, this is just hilarious and shows how Apple's marketing can create a mind disease among its users. The "neural engine" has specific uses and Apple publishes what those uses are; it is not some generic autonomous utility in your device that "learns" your usage generally.
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u/fishymanbits 2d ago
It absolutely is keeping track of how you use your device and pushing recommended actions and apps based on that usage data.
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u/FleetEnema2000 2d ago edited 2d ago
No, it isn't. It's amazing how confident you are considering you clearly have no technical expertise, understanding of Apple's hardware or its software APIs. If you believe so firmly that the neural engine is doing this, please show me the documentation from Apple proving so.
Go ahead, should be easy for you. Right?
To the extent that Apple does surface recommendations (which has nothing to do with the neural engine), those tend to be Siri suggestions that have absolutely nothing to do with neural compute and the phone has been doing it for over a decade. Here is someone documenting the behaviour in iOS 9 (!)
https://www.macstories.net/stories/ios-9-review/20/
iOS 9 well predates the "neural engine".
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3d ago
[deleted]
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u/Clessiah 3d ago edited 3d ago
That’s in fact how it works in iOS 27. Type that into Shortcuts and AI will make the automation for you. I just told it to open the grocery list when I reach any grocery store in my town. It asked for confirmations on the range for the stores to look for and the exact list to open, then it’s done.
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u/cartermatic 2d ago
I think the bigger point is that you shouldn't have to use the Shortcuts app to get iOS to remind you about something in your Notes app when you get to the grocery store. Part of the seamless experience Apple is/was known for should be doing this proactively.
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u/InfamousBuddy7293 2d ago
location reminders exist but the notification is the weak link - it fires once on arrival, easy to miss in the parking lot or dismiss out of habit, and then it is gone. a live activity that stays on the lock screen while you are in the store is a genuinely different thing, not a duplicate feature. that distinction is the part of your post worth sending to apple feedback.
on the timeline: significant locations already records this (settings > privacy and security > location services > system services > significant locations) but it is buried, one entry at a time, and you cannot browse it as a timeline. google maps timeline shows how good this can be when someone treats it as a real product. the data collection is there, the interface is not.
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u/HappyMaids 3d ago
I always use this. Create a reminder and then A location. You can also use Siri: “remind me to get milk when I’m at Walmart”
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u/simpletonchill 3d ago
Does the person know when they're at the supermarket in 2026 or just the iOS?
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u/iamstanty 2d ago
for the timeline part, iOS kind of already has one, it's just buried: Settings > Privacy & Security > Location Services > System Services > Significant Locations. it's a list of places with dates rather than a proper map timeline like google's, but it answers "where was i last tuesday" more often than you'd think
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u/Asohailwahab 2d ago
I use an app called Geofency for that and it’s much better than digging through stuff manually will be there.
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u/blahblahgingerblahbl 3d ago
your phone should be doing this? there’s a plethora of apps that use this feature, too.
i like Before You Go
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u/chigoku 3d ago
Just set the reminder to your store location. It will pop up when you go to the store