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iPhones and GPS

Avatar Mark Ford
I don't have an iPhone so would be glad of help from them as does.

I have been sent a picture from an iPhone [unexpectedly remarkably good quality] with stacks of metadata including GPS Latitude & Longitude which puts it in the middle of the Atlantic!
It was taken outside among trees which perhaps prevented it picking up signals but they weren't that dense.

Is there something one needs to switch-on or enable to get an accurate reading?

Re: iPhones and GPS

Avatar Derek Wright
It takes time to pick up the satellites and register its position, often switching to the compass seems to get the lat and long readings a bit quicker.

Sometimes SatNavs can tale 20 minutes or so to find where they are if they have been moved quite a way while they have been switched off.

Re: iPhones and GPS

Avatar Mark Ford
Thanks Derek... but phones don't get switched off do they? So why might there be a delay?
I can see that speeding along a motorway might produce some lag but ambling about the countryside?
Is the compass on an iPhone a separate App as it is on the iPad?

Re: iPhones and GPS

Avatar Derek Wright
The Compass is in the Utilities folder on the iPhone.

When the device is indoors it may be shielded from the deadly satellite rays and also I think that the location services do not operate unless an ap that needs the service is enabled. This may be a power conserving issue so that the iPhone will work through out the day before needing recharging.

Have you looked at the individual settings for Location Services in the Settings ap.

Each ap that can use Location Services has an individual switch to enable it to use the Location Services functions. I guess this includes triangulation with Cell Phone towers as well as GPS data.

Re: iPhones and GPS

Avatar Gordon Clyne
Derris guesses are right, the phone only does a location check when a running app needs it. Each time it saves the data so it has a rough idea of where you are, so for example if you move a few miles and the last map you had open was at a 50 mile resolution, it doesn't have to reacquire the entire map.
 
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