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Find my iPhone gave wrong location

My hubby used find my iPhone,it put me on a side dirt road off hwy. as can imagine it has caused all sorts of questions I cannot answer. I’m with a carrier with crap service, driving up a very tree covered range. Pls explain why it would do that ?

regards

Posted on May 4, 2024 5:29 PM

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Posted on May 5, 2024 6:53 AM

There are 3 ways the iPhone will attempt to determine your location and the process starts with the fastest, but least accurate method in this order:

  • Wifi - If the phone is connected to Wifi, it will get the location from a database of locations provided by the Access Point it is connected to. This is the least accurate, but returns a location immediately.
  • Cellular - If the phone is able to guess the location from triangulation with 3 different cell towers, then an approximate location will be determined. This takes slightly longer than WiFi and available only if a location can be determined by the 3 towers.
  • GPS - This takes the most amount of time to determine the location, but is the most accurate. You will see a location determined by at least 1 of the previous and less accurate methods first and after a GPS location can be determined, that location will update on Maps and Find My by appearing to move the blue dot to this location.
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Question marked as Best reply

May 5, 2024 6:53 AM in response to Hyslop70

There are 3 ways the iPhone will attempt to determine your location and the process starts with the fastest, but least accurate method in this order:

  • Wifi - If the phone is connected to Wifi, it will get the location from a database of locations provided by the Access Point it is connected to. This is the least accurate, but returns a location immediately.
  • Cellular - If the phone is able to guess the location from triangulation with 3 different cell towers, then an approximate location will be determined. This takes slightly longer than WiFi and available only if a location can be determined by the 3 towers.
  • GPS - This takes the most amount of time to determine the location, but is the most accurate. You will see a location determined by at least 1 of the previous and less accurate methods first and after a GPS location can be determined, that location will update on Maps and Find My by appearing to move the blue dot to this location.

Find my iPhone gave wrong location

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