How to resolve location errors on my iPad

Petermags wrote:

My apple devices think I'm in another state

There can be various causes of positioning errors.

• Unlikely in most places but quite possible in others: GPS errors or GPS jamming.
• Possible: a mis-located or recently relocated Wi-Fi network, or Wi-Fi vendor re-use of the same BSSID etc.
• Common: positioning errors in ISP-reported locations, or in IP address geolocation databases.
• Common: Private Relay being Private Relay, or Tor, or VPN.

iPhone and GPS-equipped Watch and iPad can potentially geolocate via GPS or Galileo satellites. Non-GPS equipped devices and Macs must geolocate indirectly, usually via a connected and previously geolocated Wi-Fi network.

Cellular-based geolocation can be off by five or ten kilometers too, which may well put you in a circle overlapping into the next state.

So… what particular situation or details or background are you encountering with your particular equipment? Is this a login location mail message from some web service, for instance? Or is the iPhone Maps location unusually wrong? Something else?

Do you have a WiFi Only model of iPad, or WiFi+Cellular? Are you using a VPN or Satellite internet connection?

Only WiFi+Cellular models of iPad have GPS - this being a function of the iPad Cellular chipset. WiFi Only models of iPad have no GPS capabilities with which iPad Location Services can derive location. This fundamental difference may significantly impact accurate or real-time positioning.

WiFi Only models can only “infer” their location from a database lookup of neighbouring WiFi networks for which the geographic location is known, or the geographic location of your public IP address.

For static applications in urban locations, where the location of IP public IP addresses and WiFi networks are known, an “inferred” location can be relatively accurate. However, in rural locations, or when using a Cellular/Satellite/VPN connection, location accuracy of an inferred location [if it works at all] may be very inaccurate.