I'm guessing they changed the default behavior from "include metadata" to "strip metadata" so now any app that wants metadata has to request it explicitly, and any older apps which don't know how to make such a request are simply unable to get location data?

Seems like this is possibly related to the ACCESS_MEDIA_LOCATION permission[1], and Google's recent efforts to force applications to migrate to the scoped storage API. See: https://developer.android.com/training/data-storage/shared/m...

Probably someone more versed in Android's APIs could give a better explanation.

[1]: https://developer.android.com/reference/android/Manifest.per...

Yes, it's about that permission. It's not even that recent, it has been implemented since Android 10. I think it's summarized quite well here [0]:

If your app targets Android 10 (API level 29) or higher and needs to retrieve unredacted EXIF metadata from photos, you need to declare the ACCESS_MEDIA_LOCATION permission in your app's manifest, then request this permission at runtime.

So if the app-developer didn't take explicit effort to request this data (and the user-permission for it), his app will not receive it.

[0] https://developer.android.com/training/data-storage/shared/m...