Does gps function work on ipad air with wifi only and no internet connection?

The WiFi-only models have to have a WiFi connection to receive the GPS signal, so without that you cannot get a turn-by-turn guidance. The iPad comes with Maps installed, I have used mine in the US and in France and in Austria...can't say about any other countries but assume they are available.

The wifi only model does not have a built in GPS chip like the wifi+Cellular models.

If true navigation is desired you would need another GPS device such as Bad Elf.

The WiFi-only model has NO GPS hardware. Location Services on these models works by seeing WiFi router MAC addresses and looking up their location in an Apple database of router locations. If there are no nearby mapped WiFi routers then Location Services won't work.

I do not know, as I do not use it, perhaps others here can answer better.

If I get ipad air with wifi+cellular, does it come with navigation software for turn by turn voice announcement without internet connection and cellular plan?

No. The only nav software the iPad comes with is the Maps app and it requires real-time downloading of maps. There ae several nav apps that have built-in maps, i.e. Navigon. Google for nav app reviews.

Its very strange but I have an iPad Air (wifi only) and have just driven all over Phuket Island (on holiday in Thailand) without being connected to wifi and the gps knew where I was the whole time. Everything I've read said it doesn't work so I'm trying to find out why it did for me!

I connected to the wifi at hotel and planned a driving route. Once I left the hotel the wifi dropped out of range but the GPS followed me around the entire island. I could tell where I was at all times.

Wifi IPads use a passive GPS system by picking up both GPS satellite signals as well as detecting nearby Wifi hotspots.

The Apple Maps app uses these passive GPS modes when there is no constant Wifi or cellular signal.

The only thing that needs to be done initially is to have a consistent Wifi OR cellular signal to initially program the route .

Once this is done, then the Apple Maps apps uses the iPad's bulit-in passive GPS antenna and it will accurately follow your programmed route.

I use my iPad 3 all the time as a GPS as long as the route is programmed in advance over WiFi.

I drive a much older car and it does not have any bulit-in GPS capabilities and I do not own a portable GPS device like a Garmin or TomTom GPS.

I use my iPad 3 and the Apple Maps app as my GPS.

Even the bulit-in GPS navigation in our family's Kia Sportage has a passive GPS mode.

So, iPads can act as a take-along portable GPS.

I do not believe you can program or install new maps into any IDevice, but I am not 109% sure about this as I don't use the iPad's GPS functionality in that manner.

Well that's good to know and suprisingly difficult to find out... So in summary.. Connect to wifi, plan your route, disconnect wifi and off you go with fairly accurate GPS

Using Apple Maps, yup!

😉

Good info, MichelPM...I never knew that. Thanks for sharing.

Despite a good try, with a new iPad mini and my iPad (version 3 I believe), it is not possible to maintain geo-position with a wifi only iPad. It is certainly possible to establish a route to a destination when you initially have wifi, no problem. But, once you lose wifi connectivity, the positioning data is lost. I will agree it seemed to maintain position for perhaps 5 minutes, but suddenly the location data was lost. I tried this with Google maps, HERE, and Apple Maps, same results.

My conclusion is that it is not possible to use GPS of whatever flavor, without connectivity on a wifi only iPad. My experience on my iPhone is certainly different but that has a full GPS capability built in. Good luck but no success here. I'm not sure if the architecture changed in the last 2 years, but I couldn't replicate the experience noted on the forum.

A Wifi only iPad does not use GPS at all. It has no GPS receiver and is incapable of receiving any signal at all from a GPS satellite. Wifi only iPads use wifi location (which uses Apple's proprietary database of known wifi node approximate locations), and iBeacon microlocation, a technology developed by Apple and utilizing BT based microlocator beacons - see the Wikipedia info about it at https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBeacon

But a wifi only iPad has no GPS functionality at all. iOS's location services subsystem is not inherently tied to GPS for location information. Also note that "location services" is the iOS system that supplies apps with location information. Location services itself can, if the device has the hardware to support it, use data from a GPS system, but it can use alternate sources of data to provide iOS and your apps with location information.

You yourself may be contributing to Apple's anonymous crowd based location collection based on the settings you have enabled for system services under location service's settings. Crowd based location systems and BT/wifi technology are on everyone's agenda for future location based services and technologies.

p.s. All GPS systems are inherently passive systems - consumer GPS location systems merely receive GPS satellite timing signals and do not transmit anything. That's also why, for iDevices with GPS systems, since about iOS 8.something, airplane mode does not shut off the GPS receiver and GPS will work on a cellular iPad or iphone in airplane mode.

p.p.s sorry - meant to reply to ggr001

Well Michael.

We must have good Wifi/Bluetooth nodes here in the New England States and in upper state NY and PA because my Wife and I have travelled to many unknown destinations in CT, PA, NH and VT and I have used my any of my Wifi only iPads using Apple maps and this has NOT failed us, yet.

Do you have an expert explanation for that?

Since Apple Maps was introduced, I have been using our iPad 2, 3 and Pro models as a passive GPS system and this has, so far, been working very well for us.

Maybe you should try this with Apple Maps with an iDevice that only has Wifi and test this for yourself.

We have been places, somewhat isolated hill towns where the cell tower reception has been poor to no reception, but our iPads, using Apple Maps turn by turn directions have always been able to gets us back and forth from these, somewhat remote locations, so far, with no hiccups.

Yes, for the return trip, too, we have to drive somewhere with Wifi to get Apple Maps to give us the reverse driving directions, but once the route has been established over a WIFi connection, using Apple Maps, we are, usually, good to go for the return trip.

So far, after about two years or so of using this method, we still haven't run into any issues, as yet.

So, do YOU have a better explanation for this?

I have no idea what you mean by "passive GPS" since all GPS is a passive system - GPS systems merely receive signal and process it, and do not transmit at all. Various tear downs, such as those at iFIxit, have repeatedly confirmed that wifi only iPads have absolutely no GPS related hardware at all. None. They are completely incapable of any GPS-based location services at all as they completely lack the hardware to do so.

Whatever you are experiening with your wifi only iPads, I'm happy it works for you. But it is not using GPS.