iPhone 3G Maps App locates to old house

I have exactly the same problem, except mine never snaps to my current location; it still thinks I'm at my old house, 1,000 miles away. I'm sure it's a base station issue, as I switched IPs when i moved to my current location.

If you get an answer to this, please let me know.

Thanks!

Adam

Ah, perhaps that explains how my phone suddenly became able to snap to my house in mere seconds even indoors, which it never could before. If it turns out to be proven that they've done something sneaky here, Apple's reputation is going to degrade even further as a result of this product...

Skyhook is the company who maps base stations to physical addresses, and the iPhone uses their service. Might look in that direction.

Can we please clarify what a "base station" is? Are we talking cell tower or WiFi access point? If someone has my own personal WiFi access point (or, more likely, the static IP I've procured for it for VPN access reasons) mapped to a specific, exact geographic location/address and that information is somehow being used commercially, I've got a major lawsuit I need to get busy with. Or are we just talking about which cell tower you register to? Because my little flashing blue dot snaps to my exact, exact location now, which can't easly by explained by a cell tower (unless they're somehow caching a recent true GPS fix to a given tower or something, which also has to be of at least some concern as far as privacy goes)...

Y'all must all be VERY new to the iPhone.

One of the location methods it uses, is WiFi hotspots that were mapped over the past few years by a company called Skyhook Wireless. When your phone detects nearby MAC addresses being broadcast by routers, it sends the info back to Skyhook to look up your location.

Obviously if you've moved your router since it was mapped, Skyhook will still return the old location unless you fix it.

TO submit or fix a location:

http://www.skyhookwireless.com/howitworks/submit_ap.php

Yes, I would guess that a number of us around here are new to the iPhone as of about early July! I know I personally awaited 3G before taking the leap (LOL, only to find myself disabling it!).

I ran a protocol analyzer (Wireshark) and rebooted my phone several times. Then I picked through the trace files to see what I could see. Clearly the contact with Skyhook is done strictly via the cellular network, as I couldn't see anything of relevance on the WiFi network taking place (with Wireshark you can "follow TCP stream" and "follow UDP stream" and then filter that out of the remaining trace file, one by one until there's basically nothing left (except ARP and so forth)).

So reading the link you posted and also doing some googling, it seems that it wouldn't matter which means of communication with the Skyhook server was used, as it's the geoloc database of WiFi MACs that's being queried - and who care how you go about that!? I was thinking the server was looking at my source IP and working from there (which does resolve to within about 50 miles of my house - but not an exact intersection!).

My guess is that you can't change your MAC on many of the cheaper WiFi routers/APs/etc out there. But I have a Cisco WiFi router and I can easily change the MAC used by any given interface, including radio. So I guess I'll add it to my regular network maintenance to cycle my MAC every so often - just often enough to avoid being a part of this database for any length of time.

Now I wonder...is my iPhone actually reporting MACs it "sees" to the Skyhook server each time I launch the Maps app? If so, that could be a serious privacy issue that many of us would want to be aware of...

By "Base Station", I mean my Apple Airport Extreme Base Station(s). It seems that my iPhone can acquire a signal eventually via GPS if I have my 802.11g Extreme unplugged (the "little blue dot" location to which you referred), and the minute I plug it in, my iPhone shifts to wifi locate mode (no little blue pulsating dot, rather the "crosshairs" locator) and thinks I'm at my old house, 1,000 miles away from my current location. I don't even need to be connected to the g network, just the act of being in proximity grabs a false location from it.

The Skyhook explanation seems most likely, though I don't recall ever giving permission for someone to map the geographic location of my Airport Extreme Base Station. Looks like I'll be calling them tomorrow to get further clarification on the legality of this sort of unauthorized mapping.

That's funny, mine thinks I am in Minnesota

Message was edited by: karmadude

Well, I'm a software developer, and I'd say your programmer friends have every right to be surprised.

iPhone (and several other phones) locate you using AGPS (Assisted GPS). It both enhances and speeds up the process. Basically cell-tower triangulation helps narrow down your location and also provides orbital information to the phone so it can lock down on satellites, etc.

Now, the part that perplexed your friends is locating you using your WiFi connection. This is where IP addresses and caching and other issues come to picture. You should tell them about this one!

Message was edited by: rrahimi