iphone 5s bubble level can not be calibrated

Same problem with my 5S -3 to -4 out when flat on its back and out in every other orientation. Wish apple would just say its software and then we can all patiently wait for a fix.

Colour: Space Gray

Production year: 2013

Production week: 37 (September)

Model introduced: 2013

Capacity: 32GB

Memory - flavour: xx

Factory: C3 (China)

Apple will not say anything until they have an absolute fix and know what is causing the issue. Everyone just needs to be patient and know that we still have a years warranty before we have to worry.

Im in the same camp. My 5s is doing it too.

https://twitter.com/jpswain/status/387721877050761216/photo/1

Compared my 5s against two iPhone 4 devices. 5s is 5 degrees off (compass) and 4 degrees off (level).

Comparison of my iPhone 5S to iPhone 4S. Notice that the iPhone 5S reports a 86 degree difference between the vertical and horizontal positions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYQ9uwNlEcI

Morac, nice video except when the camera is horizontal with the buttons down, the level would never be at 0 degree because the buttons stick out from the phone. Also, the 4s and 5s would be different angles because of the different lengths of the phone. In order to get a more accurate measurement on that side, you could find an edge of a table and have the buttons hang over the side.

I'm here to express that I have the same issues. Mine is somewhat better than many of you, with my readings ussually being -1 or -2 on any given edge. I am particularly worried about the reading of the device on it's back, as I like to lay my phone on it's back while playing tilting games, such as "Tilt to Live".

I took this screenshot by starting the "Tilt to Live" game while the iPhone was resting flat on its back. In this game you are the little white arrow that is in the upper right corner of the image. The arrow points in the direction that the iPhone is tilted toward (according to the sensors). The character starts in the middle of the screen and if the surface underneath the iPhone is flat, the character should stay in one place. However, instead it always heads in an upper right hand direction (opposite the volume buttons) and gets stuck in that corner. I tried this on over a dozen flat surfaces and the timing and direction of the automatic motion are exactly the same. It moves fairly quickly to the corner, on the order of about 2 seconds.

Now while I can still play the game, (you can mentally correct the offset) it is noticably annoying.

For those of you who have criticised some users for using their iPhone as a level, note that Apple actually advertises the use of an iPhone as a level. See http://help.apple.com/iphone/7/#/iphb5af8af5e

Also, the accuracy of the gyroscope and accelerometer are critical for games like this one and other that have been mentioned.

I feel that the error of the gyroscope and accelerometer should be well less than one degree, given that the compass app presumes that much accuracy by displaying results down to 1 degree. I can understand the magnetometer being a bit off for everyone as there is a lot more variability in magnetic fields. Apple even states on its help page that the magnetometer can give readings somewhat off due to variations in the magnetic field. See http://help.apple.com/iphone/7/#/iph1ac0b663 If the magnetometer can at least tell me whether I am facing North or Northeast, I give it a pass. However, there is virtually no variation in gravitational field for all of the devices out there. Seeing as Apple does not have a similar note on the error of its accelerometer or gyroscope, and their documentation and applications presume that the sensors are accurate, then it is fair to call the devices defective.

Anyhow, I contacted Apple Support chat, and they gave me a solution that is slightly different from the 90 minute DND solution. (They suggested that I restore the device and set it up as new and immediately do the 90 minute DND trick). I just started the process now and I will let you all know how it goes.

Message was edited by: Zacharydavis

Yes it won't be exactly level on the button side, but it shouldn't be off by that much. The 4S is off by 1. The most damning part of the video in my opinion, is that the phone thinks there is 86 degrees in a right angle. That's with the bottom and right side, neither of which have buttons.

I doubt many people care about the level, but when you have to hold the phone at an angle to take a Panorama photo or can't play games that use the gyroscope something is very wrong. From what I've read this problem affects most iPhone 5S's with what seems like less than 10% being correct.

I suppose it could be a software calibration issue in iOS 7, but that doesn't explain why it only affects the 5S. I really don't get the 90 minute DND "solution". Placing the phone on it's back could only calibrate the z axis. It would do nothing for the x and y axis. It's likely a made up solution someone came up with.

Maybe the reason why iphone 5s models show significant deviations (while other models also using ios 7 don't) are the obvious ones. It is obvious that all devices use ios 7 but only the 5s uses a special co-processor for sensor read out. This could be a reason for a slightly different software problem/solution. An intresting question would be how the 5c models perform (are they dealing with the same issues ?).

Nice summary, Morac, excellent points. You are right, the 90 minute DND thing makes no sense if you think about it. Also yes, the level it self is somewhat minor (but honestly should still work), but the implications for all the other aspects of the system and apps that rely on them (games, panorama photo shooting, video stabilization) for accurate readings are quite severe and not what you would expect. In particular it is not acceptable when all the previous devices (at least the ones I checked including iPhone 5, iPhone 4S) are all perfect, proving that this is something it seems like they already know how to do.

The most plausible explanations seem like either 1) something wrong with M7 chip (hardware or firmware), 2) some major manufacturing problem with the placement / factory calibration of the sensors in the 5S, 3) some major flaw in the parts themselves that are used for the sensors in the 5S. I do not believe this has anything to do with iOS 7 since the iPhone 5 and 4S devices that are totally fine also run it. I also do not believe this is an easy software fix since it seems like it is off by inconsistent amounts and also that this made it this far.

Honestly I am baffled that Apple let this through. In terms of a total quality control lapse, this demonstrates a drastically more severe level of carelessness han "antennagate." The ability to get highly accurate gyro/acceleromter sensor data has existed for years with iPhone hardware. Where cellular antenna reception is sublte and affected by an enormous number of constantly-changing conditions, and relatively much more difficult to replicate in isolation, the sensor accuracy is simply a matter of opening the compass, doing the silly calibration thing, and swiping to the right one screen, and then putting it on a flat surface, anywhere in the world, at any time, with no external dependency required (other than gravity) and look at the number to see if it is zero (or color--do you see green). How on earth does this make it through the first basic round of regression testing? How can you ship that?

I'm scheduled for Apple store genius bar in Century City (Los Angeles, CA) on Monday night. Last night, I chatted with AppleCare and the guy insisted that his 5S is correct, that not all of them are affected, and that they should be able to exchange. I'm not sure I beleive that any of them are right tho, b/c I have checked 7 different 5S devices, 4 that are unlocked from the same order, 1 AT&T single order, 1 shipped Verizon single order, and my own (unlocked and from a different order). They are _ALL_ either 3 or 5 degrees off. It should be entertaining if nothing else.

Jamie

The DNS trick is not something that someone made up. I was told by an Apple Tech Supervisor to back my iPhone, reset to factory, put my iPhone in and turn on DND and place my iPhone face up and don't touch it for 90 minutes. I left it longer and didn't work, same as everyone else. It did drop a degree (-3) on both sites but when I restored my backup, that 1 degrees decrease was now back to my -4. Strange!! I did it again and it was at -3 and now at -4. Why my back causes it to increase by 2 degree??? I called the same supervisor and told him that it didn't work and I asked him about the so called trick. It stated that it's a feature built in IOS 7 that suppose to reset-calibrate all the sensors and it's in their troubleshooting procedures. He stated that there must be a bug that prevents this procedure from working. Also told me that all of this seems to be a software issue and should see an update soon.

With my experiences with my 5s I can tell you that it does not affect any of the real racing series, I have all of them and if you go into the menu under settings and lay the 5s on its back as instructed then hit calibrate the 5s performs flawlessly in Real Racing 3. The car does not drive off the road and drives straight with the 5s level.

So you can calibrate for games and it does work just fine. There have been a lot of posts both here and other places that say this is not so.

My 5s is -3 degrees off on its side and on end is 0. In the compass level app. When initially playing Real Racing 3 my care would drift too. Calibrating in the game fixed this and now it works just fine. I agree that because the 5s has the M7 this is most likely a bad algorithm. I have been reading a lot on bosh's sight and STMicro's sight about how these sensors are calibrated its all in software held in rom. Basically 0 is set where the sensor is resting when calibrated. So IMO and based on what the sensor manufacturers have said about there own designs, the sensors were not calibrated on a level place when initially set up.

Im sure apple will fix the level in the compass app, maybe putting a calibrate function right in a future version of the app. Or a main calibrate method for the entire iPhone.

Just to add, perhaps the DND method is correct and like the above post said is just not working right now because of a software bug.

I am not much of a gamer, so I can't speak to the problems those apps are, or are not, enduring with the sensor issue. However, I do teach astronomy, and I can speak to the problems the sensor issue has with the many planetarium apps (SkySafari+, Star Walk, GoSkyWatch, GoSatWatch, Sun Surveyor, etc.). All these use the iPhone's sensors to orient the screen to the sky. I had installed iOS 7 on my iPhone 4S and used these apps for a couple weeks with iOS 7 before getting my iPhone 5S (traded in my 4S so it is gone now). What used to be smooth running apps with excellent and stable allignment of the iPhone screen relative to the sky are no longer.

For example, Sun Surveyor contains a functionality that allows the app to display the camera screen with the sun's path (past, present, and future) superimposed on the real life camera screen view. It is/was amazing. On the 4S, the app was spot on and stable. The compass and level sensors worked together to nail the postition of the sun in the sky. Quite amazing.

Now, on my 5S, the superimposed path jumps all around the screen as I hold the iPhone 5S steady and pointing toward the sky. The compass sensor can't sustain a reading of the iPhone's orientation and so the app keeps moving the path of the sun back and forth across the screen as it "thinks" the iPhone is being moved (which it is not).

The app is now useless.

Whatever the solution, one can't come too soon for me and my students.

I'm not saying you made it up. I think someone at Apple made it up as if you think about it, it makes absolutely no send from a calibration stand point.

For what it's worth, my iPhone is set to be in DND mode all night and I always leave it face up, so that procedure doesn't do anything. If it was software bug with calibration, then it should also affect the iPhone 4, 4S, 5 and 5C. From what I've read and seen it does not.

Currently I'm waiting for confirmation that newly manufactured iPhones are accurate. Once that occurs I will swap. Though Apple hasn't acknowledged the problem and media coverage of the problem died down over a week ago.

I kind of agree with you. I take trust in what the supervisor had told me. Many other concerned 5s owners were told the same thing. Mine is also in DND mode face up every night and no change. iPhone 5s is a different iPhone with different hardware than the previous models, that doesn't mean that software bugs can't exist in this model because it doesn't exist in the others. For example, the iPhone 5 had a touch screen rapid response in IOS 6 when it first came out and the previous models did not. The newly latest manufactured iPhone also has this problem, people reporting getting the week 40 devices with the same issues. I along with many others were told this is a wide spread issue and that Apple is aware of it and to keep checking for a software update. I'm waiting for a couple software releases to see if it gets corrected. If not, I'll be doing an exchange. It's too easy for them to place a calibration option in the IOS that would affect all apps and the operation of IOS. When I use the apps iHandy and Clinometer 3 in 1 bubble level and perform the in-app calibration, it holds it and proves that the gyro / sensors have no hardware issues. This calibration or the tapping of the IOS 7 level (offsets to 0, doesn't calibrate) does not affect other apps. Just because Apple hasn't acknowledged the issue, that doesn't mean anything for that is normal procedure for them and most big companies. For if they did, 100% or so owners would know and maybe request an exchange where right now maybe only 25% are aware. I hope you understand what trying to say. I purchased the new Google Nexus 7 FHD that had some GPS and touch screen issues that really upset a lot of owners. People complained (they had a right to) and returned or conducted several exchanges. Google didn't say a word and couple weeks later released a software update that fixed the issues. Upto that point everyone was saying it was hardware.

Here is a Mac Rumors link with over 60 pages now.

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1644439&page=63

Cheers!!