This is the main reason I switched from iOS to Android. Google began deprecating features in their iOS apps and location service was one of the first to go.
I find this tracking fascinating, useful and fun. There are a number of apps that attempt to use similar data to pull together statistics and metrics about time periods.
It is opt in now and on a Galaxy S4 with the latest Android update doesn't use the battery excessively.
The Android implementation is probably smoother but both Google location sharing and history still exist on iOS via Google Now and Google+. I'm not sure about the third-party situation, though.
I find this tracking fascinating, useful and fun. There are a number of apps that attempt to use similar data to pull together statistics and metrics about time periods.
It is opt in now and on a Galaxy S4 with the latest Android update doesn't use the battery excessively.