The Shape Collage iPhone/iPad app itself does not use location data in any way nor does it directly access your GPS device.

As a feature of every iPhone or iPad's camera, every time you snap a picture, it automatically saves GPS data to the picture file so that other applications (iPhoto, for example) can show where the photo was taken. This is a feature that Apple has installed on every iPhone or iPad.

In order for Shape Collage to allow you to select multiple photos for your collage from your photo library with our custom image picker, we must use a feature on the iPhone/iPad that gives us direct access to your photos. This feature allows Shape Collage to process your photos very quickly and create collages with multiple photos.

Direct access to your photos also makes the photo's EXIF metadata available, which is where Apple automatically stores the GPS data in the picture file (as well as other information such as the resolution of the photo and the photo's date). Even though Shape Collage does not read the location data from the EXIF metadata, just because it could, Apple requires authorization access to your location data. Shape Collage does not include any such information in the collages it creates, making them safer to share than the original photos.

The Shape Collage iPhone/iPad app itself does not use location data in any way nor does it directly access your GPS device. The Shape Collage App requires access to the location data ONLY because every photo taken by your iPhone or iPad has location data attached to each photo (automatically), an Apple "feature".