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iPhone 5 compass not working......still

I still have not got my iPhone 5 compass to operate correctly. I open the compass app and the ball will not roll to calibrate or anything nor will the other measurement tool when you swipe across (using iOS 7.0.4 -latest) the circle shrinks a little and after a few secs it show location and a frozen compass as everybody els says in other forms. I have turned true north on and off and restarted the app, reset the iPhone, restored the iPhone twice and still unsuccessful. Any ideas? Help would be appreciated.

iPhone 5, iOS 7.0.4, Compass unresponsive

Posted on Jan 20, 2014 11:35 PM

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Posted on Jan 21, 2014 12:09 AM

Make sure location services is turned on in the phone Go to Settings> Privacy> And Tap on location services and make sure compass is turned on under Location Services.

12 replies

Nov 21, 2016 10:46 AM in response to Truss5

Simple solution for me. iPhone SE.


My compass didn't move at all. Yet the gps/location function worked, as did the orientation sensors. A 3rd party compass app worked normally. The Apple store not-genius was baffled with this combination. He suggested restoring to factory defaults to see if it was a hardware problem.


Indeed, restoring factory defaults got the compass working. Thus, not a hardware problem. But the re-restoring from my last backup stopped it again.


I looked at various solutions that included opening the phone. I also thought of asking Apple for warranty service. Then I chanced upon a simple fix. Settings, Localization, System Services: Compass calibration ON. This got it working.


Note that this really doesn't make sense, despite its working. On my 4s, I have Compass Calibration turned off. The 4s compass still works normally.

iPhone 5 compass not working......still

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