Initial fix for location services on Wi-Fi iPad

Returned home and reinstalled my Airport Express. Location services does not work again (Maps says "Cannot Determine Location"). Can someone explain what causes location services not to work on my iPad ONLY at my house? Considering my test, it is not my router.

ianieto wrote:

So please give me more detail. Does a person with a GPS phone need to just drive by and detect my network? Or do they need to log into the network? What conditions cause the Apple database of routers to be updated? What happens if I take my Apple Airport Express router (our any other router I have) to a different location?

An iPhone only has to detect your router. It does not have to connect to it. If you take your router to another location then Locations Services will continue to use the old location until the Apple database is updated.

ianieto wrote:

I recently purchased an Airport Express router and tried it at my house wondering (my previous router needed to be replaced). Maps and other apps that want my location said that my iPad cannot be found. I just traveled 1000 miles to my parents home and plugged in the router into my parent's router. My location was found in one place near the house I am at when My iPad is hooked onto the network on the Airport Express radio and is at a slightly different location when hooked to the network from the main router radio. So if my location can be found through my Airport Express here, when I return home will the system think I am in a different location 1000 miles away?

WiFi-only IPad location services does not just use the router that you are connected to. In fact, you do not need to be connected to a WiFi router for your iPad to see it and its MAC address. It uses the location of any and all WiFi routers that it can see (you do not have to connect). If your parent's WiFi router is turned on the iPad can see it and the iPad can also see any neighbor's WiFis. It will use the locations of all the routers it can see (note that it may see routers that it does not list as possible connections - it does not list routers whose signal strength is too low for a reliable connection). Moreover, based on the signal strength from all the routers it can see and their geographical location in Apple's database, the iPad will triangulate this data to give you a more precise location.

So, at your parent's house, your location was probably found without using your Airport Express at all.

BobTheFisherman wrote:

It does not have to be an iPhone. It can be anyone with any GPS phone, iPad, driving by and identifying your router. My response was related to you saying you needed to get an iPhone. You don't, unless of course you want to.

It probably has to be an iPhone or GPS-enabled iPad. It cannot be just any GPS-enabled phone. The Apple database is proprietary and the interface to it is not publc. How/Why could/would any phone send such data to Apple unless Apple negotiated an arrangement with them? I don't know of any such arrangements.

Eric Sprigg wrote:

Another question occurs to me: although I don't have an iPhone myself, I have had friends visit with an iPhone. Why didn't that send the location data of my router to Apple? Or, put another way, what do I have to do to get the information to Apple?

Thanks again.

I know of no way to inform Apple of a router location. You have to wait. It's possible that, to prevent errors, more than one detection might be necessary. If friends visited with iPhones then to determine your router location would require that: your router was turned on, the WiFi on the iPhones was turned on, the iPhones could get a GPS signal, etc.

ianieto wrote:

Returned home and reinstalled my Airport Express. Location services does not work again (Maps says "Cannot Determine Location"). Can someone explain what causes location services not to work on my iPad ONLY at my house? Considering my test, it is not my router.

From my previous post it is likely that you were located at your parent's house without using your router at all. By the way, this isn't a router problem it's just a matter of getting your router's MAC address and geographical location into Apple's database.

Looks like I need to find a few people with iPhones and invite them to my home and see how long it takes for location services to start working.

Hi ianieto

Did this ever get resolved? I've recently acquired a new router and, like you, location services is no longer working on my iPod touch or Macs. Wondering how long I might have to wait for my router to make it to the Apple database.

Thanks, Paul

My issue has not been resolved. Been patiently waiting because I got tired of looking for a solution. Nobody seems to take accountability for this. I tried my local provider and Apple. It is not my ipad because it works well with the Airport Express at other locations but some say I could be getting the location info from other surrounding routers but I cannot confirm this.

Thanks for coming back - that's disappointing. It's a shame there isn't a mechanism for directly informing Apple of the MAC address of a router, like you can with Skyhook.

Oh well, I'll settle in for a long wait 😟. Thanks again.

I have "automatically send" already enabled so this unlikely will fix this issue.

An IPad mini with correct location is sitting next to my ipad2, which thinks it is 70 miles away. So one has picked up the router, one hasn't.

Here's what I did:

Turned off Location Services on the iPad.

Rebooted the iPad.

Turned on Location Services on the iPad.

Checked map location - MUCH closer to my new location. (Still off, though - but by a few hundred yards, not 20 miles.)

For what it's worth, I had an iPhone 4S connected to my wifi while doing this. No idea if that matters though.