I am building an Android app that will track the user's geolocation and draw their route on a map.
I am using the Google Play Services location API, as described here.
It is intuitive that my application requires the ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION permission, which I put in the manifest:
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION"/>
Do I also need the ACCESS_COARSE_LOCATION permission?
What's the use case where I need the coarse location?
ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION includes ACCESS_COARSE_LOCATION. However, there is a catch:
ACCESS_COARSE_LOCATION gives you last-known location which is battery friendly https://developer.android.com/training/location/retrieve-current.html#setup This has a dependency on Google Play Services
However, if you need something like live/ real-time location, use ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION It gives you live/ real-time location. You'll need to use a LocationListener though.
In simple word ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION gives you better and accurate location and ACCESS_COARSE_LOCATION gives you less accurate location.