Inaccurate find my iphone

Yes, the circle is the area of uncertainty for the location fix, so basicially defines the range of possabilities for the exact location.

If the iPhone is indoors somewhere and thus access to GPS timeing signals is blocked, it will be relying on alternate means of locations services, such as wifi-node location or cell tower location, either of which is an approximation at best.

Even if it were outside and had an unobstructed view of the sky, so GPS signals could be reliable received, if its battery is getting very low, its location determination may suffer, or it may be partially obstructed and thus receiving a poor or limited GPS signal which would also hinder location determination.

The dot is in the middle of the radius of the estimated location. So yes, the method of plotting is that the dot itself represents the best approximate location fix, and the circle represents the potential uncertainty around that location (since the uncertainty has no directionality, it is drawn as a simple radius around the location estimate).

So to search for it, you would normally go to the location of the dot, and then search outwards from there to cover the circle's area to try to find it.

Although, if it is not your house, and your iPhone was stolen, please, go to the police and do not try anything on your own that could lead to a confrontation of any kind.

The accuracy of the dot will vary on just how location services is getting its information. If it is able to receive GPS satellite timing signals and actually compute a GPS fix, then yes, it would be accurate to within feet.

If it is showing a huge uncertainty radius then it must not be able to receive actual GPS data, so it may well be using a nearest cell tower, which could be several miles away, making the overall uncertainty huge. Location services will do the best it can with the location data available - GPS if available, wifi-node hardware address if available, nearest cell tower if that is all it can pickup.

Bottom line - it is what it is. The fix shown is the best possible and with whatever uncertainty inherent to it, based on whatever data the system can get access to. Sometimes, yes, the location estimation may come with a huge degree of uncertainty, and the dot is merely the center of that radius of uncertainty - the device could be anywhere in that.

The problem with wifi is that when an iPhone running on battery power goes into screen-sleep mode, the wifi radio is turned off. Unless someone swipes to re-awaken it, the wifi radio will not be on and thus not connected to anything. In that case, the data connection is via cellular data, and if GPS signals cannot be received location services will be reduced to nothing but cell tower data to send a location fix to the iCloud servers.

So if it is in sleep mode, even if in range of this known wifi node, as location services updates at the request of iCloud, it should fall back to a cell tower-based location, unless someone has it and wakes it up to power up the wifi radio, or takes it outside where the GPS reciever can now get satellite data.

Hi Michael,

Your answers to the above user are VERY helpful. I know back in 2013 as well, so I hope that you see my question. I just finished Skyping with my fiance. Its very late. She is at home. I'm testing this Find my iPhone, accuracy. It shows one minute, the green dot is perfectly on top of a home, in a neighborhood just a couple streets down ( practically over the fence). 10 min later, the green dot is PERFECTLY over our condo. I sent her a text telling her. 5 min later, the dot is bouncing around our building of our condo. Practically every time I refresh. Does this have to do with the satellite? Her phone is running via cellular data. I'm not sure if she uses the wifi on her phone. Do you know why this is? I'm just wondering if your answer would be as you have given above. Also, that if when I sign on & off. Perfectly, the green dot keeps going BACK on the same house, with NO bigger green dot around it (as if its in the range). Just accurately on this house, does this mean the accuracy is correct?

Thank You.

I can tell you this. Some guy came by my house at 2am b/c his app said his phone was IN MY HOUSE (hint: it wasn't). So please, be careful.