It seems easy to fix: can't they test the app in the app store and see if it can handle the exception or not, and if it can't, return a dummy (0,0) coordinate?
Actually testing every app sounds like a challenge Google isn't interested in taking on.
There's also the question of whether apps will still behave gracefully when receiving dummy data. Some apps may misbehave in ways such that it's not immediately apparent that the root cause is a permissions issue.
