iPhone 4s location wrong... Why?

1. im not aggressive at all

2. it's not a hypothesis. i've tested it on several phones. other people did it too.

3. "we all know what causes it" is surely not wrong. read #2.

4. doesn't matter if there are only 3 cellphone towers in reach, if their traffic isn't congested (and it most certainly isn't since you're in the country side), you'll get 3G coverage. besides, being OUT in the open, you have gps signal, so that's the reason location worked. these might be the reasons location worked for you. the moment you got indoors and lost gps AND 3G all togehter, you got the location issue too.

as i said, most people didn't noticed this problem untill they were left without gps AND 3G coverage, and this is pretty unlikely to happen to a very large number of people since 3G is so wide spread.

and the last thing no one gave a thought so far (and most likely no one knows) is the ios 5.0.1 (or even 5.0, don't know for sure) disables 3G by itself when the signal is too week. the on/off 3G swtich is now gone from settings as you must have noticed.

if ios 5.0.1 wouldn't do that, even the signal would've been weak, it would've still been there, allowing location to work. but in order to boost the gsm signal, ios disables 3G even if there is a week 3G signal.

one last thoguht.

iphone 4 and iphone 4s, both running the same software. both using EDGE and wifi, with no 3G coverage. first one doesn't have location issues, second does. who's to tell it's not a hardware issue after all?

I'm sorry but I don't beleive it's got anything to do with coverage, 3G, WiFi or otherwise. I've had an iPhone for years and never, ever, had location issues, until this week. I upgraded to a 4s upon release and it's been fine... until this week. It came out of the blue. Sometimes I'm in China, sometimes i'm in South America, sometimes I'm in Malaysia and very ocassionally I'm at home!

Nothing has changed at this end.

Pete

do you have 3G OR GPS when "you're traveling around the world"? 🙂

For me it depends:

-Wifi at school = France, 3G at school = China

-Wifi at home = China, 3G at home = China or France, it depends on the time^^

Hi... I have an iPhone 4 and have just come across this issue with the location service. I recently took a trip to Argentina and since i have returned to the UK my location service has gone crazy. When i am inside a building or in a low signal area my location comes up as just off the Redwood Highway in Los Angeles when i am infact in the UK. If i go outside the location service (time zone) updates and i'm back to my correct position.

I assume this is a software issue. Looking forward to a fix.

It's not just about 3G signal. I live in the middle of nowhere and don't get 3G at home and have problems at home.

I work in a town where thee is 3G coverage, I have problems there.

And yes, I've filled out a feedback form.

T WORKED FOR ME AS I WAS HAVING THE SAME PROBLEM.. I AGAIN USED 2G DATA PLAN IN DIFFERENT SIM AND ASSISTED GPS STOPPED WORKING INDOORS AND OUTDOORS ONLY REAL GPS WOULD WORK AND I SWITECHED IT BACK TO 3G AND BOOM INDOORS AND OUTDOORS LOCK WAS HAPPENIND IN MERELY 4-5 SECONDS

I have an iPhone 4 in Austria using Red Bull

Mobile as a provider and my location service has the same bug as described here.

Right now my phone is telling me that I am in Bangalore. (weather & maps)

Okay, so I spoke to Apple today. Apparently there is solution, I tried the following steps that they instructed me to do and so far so good. My TimeZone is still incorrect but apparently they are sending out updates to all network providers to solve this issue.

Here's what they told me to do.

Double tap the home button. This will bring up a grey bar along the bottom of the screen showing all you apps that are currently running. Hold your finger on one of the app icons until they start to wobble! When they start wobbling they'll have a red circle in corner. Tap the red circle on all of them to shut them down properly.

Then go into settings and turn on airplane mode. When you've done that go to settings, general, reset and choose reset network settings (you will need to re-enter your wifi passwords!)

Once your phone has reset go to settings, location services, turn it off then on again.

Then go settings, location services, system service, set time off! This should correct the issue, not sure if it's a permanent fix but mines been ok for hours now!

He said if this didn't resolve it then give it a couple of days as they are sorting settings with network providers!

Let's hope it works for all and that they are doing what they said!

Good luck all

Ps. Hope instructions made sense!

Even though time zone isn't right all maps and other apps are detecting me in right location!

Just tried auto time zone again and yay, back to London! :)

@traceyfozz Thank you for the feedback. This solution suggested by Apple might well work if you remain in your current time zone. But if you travel to another time zone then the phone won't update the time correctly since the Location Service for "Set Time Zone" is switched off. So I am afraid this is not a permenant fix for someone like me who travels the world frequently. Let's hope Apple will issue a proper fix soon.

A few points to note in my particular case:

Problem is with my iPhone 4S 64gb, Factory Unlocked. iOS 5.0.1 (9A405).

My iPhone 4 32gb Factory Unlocked, iOS 5.0.1, is not affected using the same SIM card.

I am on the Vodafone network in Mumbai, India. I travel the world frequently and use my Mumbai SIM on roaming. I do not use 3G, only use Edge, and that too only in Mumbai. I do not use data swrvices on roaming.

I have had this problem of incorrect time zone and incorrect location since 14th Dec. Before that, my iPhone 4S worked perfectly no matter where I was in the world.

It's not a 3G issue, since I only use Edge. My iPhone 4S worked fine on Edge until 14th Dec. Moreover, when I'm on roaming, I do not have Edge switched on, yet the phone worked fine without Edge.

My iPhone 4 on iOS 5.0.1 works perfectly on the same SIM card even now, has never once showed incorrect time zone or location. Only my iPhone 4S is affected.

From surfing the net, it seems the problem suddenly started affection a large number or users starting 13th Dec onwards. Before that, very few users reported the problem, and if they did, it was mostly about wrong location within the local area or local city, rather than random time zones all over the world.

I have tried all the following:

Reset location Warnings

Reset Network Settings

Reset All Settings

Normal Reboot iPhone

Hard reboot iPhone

Full erase and restore phone and set up as New phone via iTunes on my Mac.

None of the above fixed the problem.

I will now try restoring from the new (9A406) build of iOS 5.0.1 and also try the remedy suggested by traceyfozz.

I have sent a detailed report to Apple.

Let's hope Apple fixes this problem soon. I request other members to post their findings here, especially those that have had feedback from Apple.

Regards to all...

I have been following this discussion closely since my iphone 4s developed the same problem a few days ago; I live in Scotland but apparently my location is Shanghai and sometimes Hyderabad!
I tried some of the suggested solutions here, none of which worked, so I gave up and was just going to live with it until Apple sorted it.

However, I hesitate to write this in case it all goes wrong again but the problem seems to have sorted itself. It's nothing I have done but it all seems to be okay as of tonight. My location is absolutely bang on now. I have tried it numerous times on with WiFi switched on and off, for the past three hours or so and it always seems to work properly, whereas yesterday it was always taking me back to Beijing after a temporary fix.

Hope this isn't the kiss of death, long may it last!🙂

As it has been reported by posters before, the issue is not limited to the iPhone 4s or iOS5. My experience can be summarized as follows:

- iPhone 3GS, bought 2009, runnning iOS 4.3.5

- so far happened twice (but not today)

- 2011-12-14 at about 3 PM UTC

- 2011-12-15 at about 4 PM UTC

- both times relocated to China and timezone changed accordingly

- happened indoor at my working place which means

- neither GPS/GLONASS, nor WiFi, nor 3G (I actually switch it off to improve battery life)

- I am always connected to the same 2G indoor carrier antenna

- never happened before and I am working at the same place since years

In other words something must have changed very recently within Apple's location databases, since in my setup there have been no changes since the availability of iOS 4.3.5. So far for the facts.

No for some guessing: since Apple is told to have started using crowd sourced location databases, there could still be issues related to GLONASS or iPhone 4S or iOS5 in the sense that there is an issue with one of those that leads to pollution of the databases that in turn affects other users as well.

I reported the facts to Apple via the feedback form, let's hope they can sort it out quickly.

Regards to all

I update to ios 501(9a406)last night no change

But in the morning i try this

Turn on airplane mod

Turn on wiifii

Turn off location service and back on

And go to maps

The lication was right

....you have to make this outside not inndors

Until now it works for me.