I’ve upgraded mine and my family’s iPhone 11 and 12 to iOS 15 yet live tracking isn’t working on any of them in the find my app. It is working exactly as it did before. It would show a location and then a minute or so later would update the new position but no live tracking.
iPhone 12
SOLVED !?!?!
After extensive testing (well actually, a few calls to family members), I have found that if both parties are running IOS 15.x and both parties have the "Find My" application running (even if in the background), then it will show you the "Live" location of the other party, however if the person you are trying to view does not have the "Find My" application running on their end, it will NOT show you their live location.
The other observation we made is that if you leave the "Find My" application running in the background, it does appear to significantly reduce your battery charge level, which I guess is to be expected if it is using your GPS to determine your position at a high frequency, and sending that data to Apple.
If you find that the above is not true in your situation, please feel free to reply and advise this was not a solution in your case.
SOLVED !?!?!
After extensive testing (well actually, a few calls to family members), I have found that if both parties are running IOS 15.x and both parties have the "Find My" application running (even if in the background), then it will show you the "Live" location of the other party, however if the person you are trying to view does not have the "Find My" application running on their end, it will NOT show you their live location.
The other observation we made is that if you leave the "Find My" application running in the background, it does appear to significantly reduce your battery charge level, which I guess is to be expected if it is using your GPS to determine your position at a high frequency, and sending that data to Apple.
If you find that the above is not true in your situation, please feel free to reply and advise this was not a solution in your case.
FindMy Live Tracker issue (SOLVED)
Hi. To everyone who has this problem I found how to fix it even if the “experts” couldn’t.
The FindMy app doesn’t automatically sync after you update to iOS 15. Although the app loads and seems to work fine the “live” feature doesn’t automatically go active.
in order to get this working you manually have to REMOVE all your contacts from the map. And stop sharing your location. Restart your phone. Load FindMy again, tap on “me” at the bottom right and then tap “share my location” now add all your contacts back to the FindMy map. Your live tracker will now work.
it took me months of debating with Apple about this to which they always claimed it was our devices. It’s the app feature itself that needs manually activated.
I hope this helps.
The „problem“ is definetly the apple watch cellular. I have tested this with some friends. When you use a apple watch cellular, the location tracking runs always on apple watch (also when the watch is connected to the iphone). You can not choose between iphone and apple watch. When the apple watch is powered off, the live tracking works because then it will be use only the iphone.
apple watch without cellular works fine.
i hope apple will fix this shortly.
I did finally get it to work but I had to factory restore both phones then restore from backup. I’m so glad that Apple was so helpful. /sarcasm
That had nothing to do with my solution. My wife and daughters never use that app and have never opened it. However it does work now that I factory reset every phone. So the find my app is not running, even in the background, on my family’s phones but live tracking does work now.
The common thread for our family is Apple Watch Cellular (with AT&T NumberSync). The ones with this are NOT Live. All the others have Apple Watches, WiFi only, and we ARE Live.
iOS 15.4 did not fix this.
Mine was fixed when I turned on find my network. Under the find my iPhone. Before that nothing worked.
Sorry can’t help there. I did the restore on my daughter’s phone and now I can live track again. Make sure to completely wipe restore from backup
The problem has been fixed with ios 15.4
My wife and I both have new iPhone 13 pro max phones. We both drive for Uber part time and was totally thrilled to see that the find my app had added the live functionality to the app - while it worked at least. It only worked for a short period of time. Then it went back to the old update method. In trying to troubleshoot and trying to figure it out I have found that the “Live” function works for everyone in my list except for people that have a iPhone + Apple Watch w/cellular. If they have the Apple Watch w/o cellular or just the iPhone it works perfectly. Talking and trying to work with Apple tech Support has gotten me nowhere. I would really like to get this resolved as my wife and I really need it. I hope this sheds a little light on the issue.
Update: I doing some more troubleshooting I know that I stated before that the “Live” function was not working if the friend ha a Apple iPhone + Apple Watch w/cellular. Well all of a sudden I looked at him on the app and he did go to “Live” status. I called him to see what setting that he might have changed. He stated that he had changed no settings but that his Apple Watch had shut off last night due to low battery so his Watch had been shut off all night. Once he turned the Watch back on it no longer showed “Live” and went back to “Now” status and had to wait to update.
Well as an update - I have restored my phone with no luck - after talking to Apple again, I found out that I was one of the first people to complain about the issue to Apple. They are starting to dig in to the issue. But it sounds like until more people call in with the issue and so they can get more diagnostics on the issue we will just be left out in no where land until they find the issue and that it is not working. Which I had better news.
Wow. 212 "I have this question too's" and not one response. Feels like the community is on life support. I have 2 iphone 12's on 15.1 and one gets live updates and the other looks just like it did under 14. We've aligned everything we can think to do and steill the behavior persists.
My wife and I both have new iPhone 13 pro max phones. We both drive for Uber part time and was totally thrilled to see that the find my app had added the live functionality to the app - while it worked at least. It only worked for a short period of time. Then it went back to the old update method. In trying to troubleshoot and trying to figure it out I have found that the “Live” function works for everyone in my list except for people that have a iPhone + Apple Watch w/cellular. If they have the Apple Watch w/o cellular or just the iPhone it works perfectly. Talking and trying to work with Apple tech Support has gotten me nowhere. I would really like to get this resolved as my wife and I really need it. I hope this sheds a little light on the issue.
not that this is super insightful but when I open “find my” - everyone who still updates as “live” updates with their location immediately. Everyone who I lost live tracking on, spins for a longer period of time before it updates their location.
The live people are more real time in the full list and the now people are often listed as “5 minutes ago” etc. until I click on them and manually force the update.
nothing makes sense as to why just these two people are no longer live - it’s not related to which phone they have, what iOS they have or what watch they have.
Find my live tracking isn’t working
