Great question—this is a common pain point for developers looking to build location-aware apps without reinventing the wheel! Let’s break down the situation for both platforms:

Android #

• There is no public API that allows third-party apps to access the full location history stored by Google (like the data shown in Google Maps Timeline). The closest you can get with official tools is the FusedLocationProviderClient from Google Play Services, which lets you retrieve real-time location, last known location, or ongoing location updates—but this doesn’t give you access to the historical timeline Google maintains for a user.
• As of now, Google has not announced any plans to open up a public API for this data. This is largely due to strict privacy considerations: location history is highly sensitive user data, and Google restricts access to it to its own first-party services (like Maps) to ensure user control and compliance with global privacy regulations.

iOS #

• Similarly, Apple does not provide a public API for third-party apps to access the system-stored "Significant Locations" (iOS’s equivalent of Google’s Timeline). The Core Location framework only enables you to request real-time location, track ongoing location changes, or fetch recent location updates—you can’t pull the complete historical location data that iOS stores for the user.
• Apple has also not shared any plans to release such an API. Apple’s privacy-focused ecosystem prioritizes limiting access to sensitive user data, and location history falls into this category; only first-party apps (like Maps) have access to this system-level data.

Alternative Approach #

If you need location history functionality in your app, the only viable path is to track and store location data within your own app (with explicit user consent, of course). Once the user grants the necessary location permissions (always allow, in most cases), you can use the platform’s location services to collect updates and save them to your app’s local storage or backend server. Just be sure to follow all platform privacy guidelines (like disclosing data usage in your app’s privacy policy and respecting user controls to pause/delete history).

内容的提问来源于stack exchange，提问作者writofmandamus