Frozen1968 wrote:
I noticed on both our iPads in settings>location services>system services that Cell Network Search is always running(has a purple triangle next to it.) This seems to be new with ios 5. I disabled this along with Setting Time Zone beacause they were preventing other apps from finding my current location through location services. Does anyone know what Cell Network Search actually does? I thought it might have something to do with 3G but my 3G is working fine with it disabled. It would be nice to know what this is! Thanks.
Cell Network Search is a location based service that sends your location information, and the tower ids of the network towers within range of (and thus detected by) your phone. It is used by Apple marketing (and whomever they choose to sell/share the database with) to determine patterns of cell useage, tower congestion and so on.
Those features in System Services are all about sending your location based information TO Apple, not about enabling features or services on your iPhone. This is Apple's way of allowing you to opt out of the collection of location based data that previously was done surriptiously without overtly letting you know or have any way to stop it.
You can disable every single feature in that section and your iPhone or iPad will continue to function exactly the same way it always has.
The only one that has anything to do with your use is the time zone feature, but you'd only actually need that one on IF you were outside of range of any cellular towers and wanted your time zone set by your GPS location. If you turn it off, but leave the time&date setting on "automatic" then your time zone will be determined by the time signal received from the wireless towers your device connects to.