iphone 4 GPS not working right

A

Archer75

Supreme [H]ardness
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Oct 10, 2001
Messages
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The iphone 4 has a GPS chip right? Because it's not working at all. I know it does AGPS with cell towers but should dial in with the GPS chip.

Yesterday we went for some hikes and wanted to do some geocaching but the iphone always said we were somewhere other than where we actually were. We had good signal strength. 3G the entire time.

But it would jump positions on a map. 3 positions and always one of those 3. One was 20 miles away. The others were sort of in the vicinity but still miles away. Even going home it couldn't find our location and would jump around and it wasn't accurate until we actually got home.

Even now my wife has the phone and she's at work and using find my iphone to pinpoint her location is still off by 4 blocks.

I also have an ipad with 3G and GPS and it's never had a problem. I could always use it reliably as a GPS unit. Using find my ipad it shows it as being location in the exact home i'm in. It's dead on.
 
I've never had these things pinpoint my exact location. I mapped my saved locations from that locationgate thing and there were tons of spots 20, 50, or more miles from where I have ever been since I owned the phone. Even when it's close it's not exact and jumps around. AGPS totally sucks and I doubt my phone has ever got actual GPS reception.
 
To directly answer the original question, yes; the iPhone 4 (and 3G and 3GS) has a "real" GPS receiver in it. A-GPS is used for initial localization, and where no GPS signal is available, but then switches to satellite triangulation once the necessary signals have been acquired. Given that your iPad 3G can get an accurate location lock where your iPhone cannot, that suggests a faulty GPS receiver in the iPhone. I had an iPhone 3G replaced for this exact reason. All it took was a visit to the Genius Bar to demonstrate the problem; I was out the door with a replacement in less than 30 minutes.
 
Verge said:
GENIUS !!!



How is it you think GPS works exactly?
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Satellites triangulate the position maybe? Consumer GPS should be accurate within 10' or so. It shows the location of my ipad as being in the exact room in my house that it's actually in.

Now showing my wife as being 8 blocks away from her current location whereas yesterday it was 4 blocks off. This past Saturday and Sunday it was off by 10-20 miles off at times. Also takes a very long time to get a lock compared to my ipad. Even without a cell signal for AGPS it should still be able to get a GPS lock, it just may take a little bit longer. But it's not accurate at all.
 
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If it shows incorrect data on the Google Maps application like you said as well as on the find my iPhone page then I would definitely say there is a problem with the phone that should be looked at by the genious bar. My boss's 3Gs would never switch from the A-GPS to the actual GPS chip, so it would get to that 1 mile radius circle, and just stay there, Apple tried a bunch of fixes, none of which worked, and they replaced the phone on the spot. New phone worked perfectly so it wasn't just an issue of being indoors.
 
Archer75 said:
Satellites triangulate the position maybe? Consumer GPS should be accurate within 10' or so. It shows the location of my ipad as being in the exact room in my house that it's actually in.

Now showing my wife as being 8 blocks away from her current location whereas yesterday it was 4 blocks off. This past Saturday and Sunday it was off by 10-20 miles off at times. Also takes a very long time to get a lock compared to my ipad. Even without a cell signal for AGPS it should still be able to get a GPS lock, it just may take a little bit longer. But it's not accurate at all.
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Trying to make a joke.


Get out your precious garmin if you don't like the iphone, and have her try to zoom in to her location inside a large metal building that she presumably works at... See the joke now?
 
Verge said:
Trying to make a joke.


Get out your precious garmin if you don't like the iphone, and have her try to zoom in to her location inside a large metal building that she presumably works at... See the joke now?
Click to expand...

Actually it's not a large metal building. Either way you must not have read my posts when I said it's not working correctly outside. And my ipad is.

I do, on the other hand, work in a very large metal building with a lot of hi-tech equipment and can get a lock on my ipad no problem.

It's not a matter of not liking it, it's a matter of it not working correctly.
 
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Wonder if the GPS works on this [ame="http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=130540359649"]one.[/ame]
 
Well she got a replacement phone. Walmart wouldn't accept an exchange for just the GPS being wonky even though she demonstrated right then and there it was screwed up.

It was also having some weak wi-fi signal strength or just couldn't see our network at all. And it couldn't hold a charge past a day. So they exchanged it.

New phone works great! GPS is accurate now and actually follows you when you drive which it didn't do before. Updates very quickly too.
 
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