Apple Event: May 7th at 7 am PT
I've been sharing my location with my spouse and within the last week or so the blue circle of location uncertainty has become very broad when in a structure. Particularly when that structure is not "stick built." On the order of 25 blocks or so. Has something started to fail on the phone? Some (older) signal been turned-off? Location certainty seems reasonably precise when the phone is outdoors.
Outdoors the phone uses GPS satellites to find the location, which is generally accurate to 3 meters; that doesn’t work indoors, because the phone can’t see the sky, so it uses the location of known Wi-Fi networks and cell tower triangulation. If there are sufficient Wi-Fi networks in the vicinity the indoor accuracy should be as good or better as outdoors. So the first thing to do is to make sure Wi-Fi is enabled. It doesn’t have to connect to Wi-Fi, because the phone can still “see” Wi-Fi hotspots even when not connected, but Wi-Fi must be enabled.
Outdoors the phone uses GPS satellites to find the location, which is generally accurate to 3 meters; that doesn’t work indoors, because the phone can’t see the sky, so it uses the location of known Wi-Fi networks and cell tower triangulation. If there are sufficient Wi-Fi networks in the vicinity the indoor accuracy should be as good or better as outdoors. So the first thing to do is to make sure Wi-Fi is enabled. It doesn’t have to connect to Wi-Fi, because the phone can still “see” Wi-Fi hotspots even when not connected, but Wi-Fi must be enabled.
Why has my location become very broad?
