targa86

Q: Why is my current location incorrect?

My current location for various apps is shown incorrectly. My town is bordered by two other towns. While at home, some apps display my current location as one or the other towns, but never as my own town. Specifically, Maps and weather app in the User Notification.

 

Maps

Maps shows my location as being a few streets way in one of the bordering towns. Is there some way to manually set my current location?

 

Weather

Is there a way to set my current location manually? The weather app displays weather for one of the bordering towns as my current location. The town it displays encompasses a very large area from interior and coastal hillside regions, to interior, central regions. Therefore, the displayed temperature differs from my town by 10 degrees on any given day, and/or shows cloudy when it is sunny outside without a cloud in the sky, etc.

 

Is there another way to edit the list of cities and reorder them? Tried to add my town, but the green Add button does not activate. When I click on the "i" icon, unable to remove any of the other cities listed or activate the "list" icon for a given city on the list. The edit button only allows me to add or remove category items, not edit content in the weather app.

 

Running OS X version10.11.6 on iMac 21.5-inch, late 2012

 

Would appreciate any help.

 

Thanks!

iMac (21.5-inch, Late 2012), OS X El Capitan (10.11.6), 3.1 GHZ Intel Core i7, 16 GB memory

Posted on Aug 30, 2016 11:18 AM

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Q: Why is my current location incorrect?

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  • by lkrupp,Solvedanswer

    lkrupp lkrupp Aug 30, 2016 11:47 AM in response to targa86
    Level 5 (4,143 points)
    Aug 30, 2016 11:47 AM in response to targa86

    Macs do not have GPS radios in them. So how does a Mac running OS X determine its location? Simply put, it can’t on its own. Instead OS X uses your WiFi connection to scan other routers in the area in an attempt to approximate your location. You will never have a completely accurate location and it will actually change from time to time. As long as you understand this you can know that your approximate location is enough for most apps that rely on location data.

     

    https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204690

     

    See this link for more information. You cannot manually set your location.

  • by targa86,

    targa86 targa86 Aug 30, 2016 11:51 AM in response to lkrupp
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Mac OS X
    Aug 30, 2016 11:51 AM in response to lkrupp

    Oh well, this is disappointing. But thank you for your quick reply!