iPhone 4s location wrong... Why?

well, looks like this is not a software nor a hardware issue, just a carrier who needed an update from apple 🙂

location errors are gone, everything's fixed for me without doing a single thing.

though there's still a bug... siri doesn't know where i am, automatic date & time doesn't work right...

I have found the way to fix this, simply by calibrating the compass:

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2767

Hopefully this helps you all out.

ugh... what? 🙂

After trying out a couple of solutions including the calibrating compass, enabling disabling airplane, wifi, location services mentioned some where in the discussions over the last couple of days, I can only conclude it is a software bug and apple needs to fix it. I don't think it is a hardware bug, that would really be bad especially for users in India where we had to pay the highest for getting an iPhone, a 16 gb costing almost 45k Indian rupees and be stuck with a dud and the phone behaves like Steve Jobs would say behaves like crap. My local weather varies from riyadh to come where in the fields of china, that would be a couple of thousand miles apart not a couple of miles. Now acting for iOS 5.1, trying out anything else is just a waste of time.

I had this issue. GPS worked, but if it couldn't get GPS it would fallback to LAC, which is like a 3-4km radius accuracy, which *****. It would never even try to use WiFi. Anyways, "Reset Network Settings" fixed this for me.

Good luck.

If you are getting a location from WiFi, then it is very likely the local office of the WiFi service. My WiFi always tells me I am in Arlington, which is about 15 miles from here, as does my cell phone bill. It's a database issue.

I have the same problem and have a few observations. I have a 4s 16gb. Location was very accurate until 14 dec, when it put me in China and occasionally in Texas, I was in the south of England. The location was shown as very stable. I was inside and in a location where traditional gps would not work and I had no 3G coverage and no active wifi, so it appears that the location was being calculated by using the Edge/GPRS triangulation method. When I moved outside and used a mapping app that allowed me to switch on the gps the phone correctly gave my position, but it took a few minutes to gain the position, this is understandable as the gps can be confused if it thinks it is in a different part of the world. I then set up my iPad wifi only model, and connected this by tethering it to an other mobile (n97 mini) to the 3 mobile network, this gave me the right position, I then connected the iPhone to the same mobile and it continued to give the wrong location. I conclude that the iPhone prefers to use the edge/GPRS triangulation. Where I get 3g the location is correct. So it appears that the issue is the GPRS/edge system that is causing the problem. Having read through the posts here I see that a lot users with this gross error are on the O2 network, which I am on as well. I suspect that problem may because of a software change in either the O2 or apple's system about 3 days ago. I have passed this onto apple through the issues reporting portal. Hope this helps.

I haven't made any changes at all to my iPhone 4S yet apart from briefly this morning, my location has remained stable all day too. Hmmmm ...

Ahh so a carrier update fixed it then? Good.

Same problem here.One time changing my location to Shangai.I´m in Seville (Spain)

I have had this problem of incorrect time zone and incorrect location the 14th Dec and today.

Dont think its fixed yet.

I tried the Maps App this morning and it worked perfectly. Seemed a lot faster too. Its been working fine all day until a few minutes ago when I noticed the time had shot forward 3 hours and I'm back in Baghdad.

I have reported the issue with Apple feedback too.

When my location changing to Shangai I tried sygic and it works fine but maps located in Shangai.

You're right. My location is back at Osh International Airport, Kyrgyzstan this morning sigh.

I know of 2 other local 4s owners who have this same issue, but not one of the 4, 3Gs or 3G owners I know.

Bah!

Aaaaand I'm back to my correct location. Guess it's just a waiting game now till it settles down. If this continues I'll be on the blower and lodging feedback again.