ios 9.2 GPS Problems

Nope. Did nothing for me.

My iPhone SE arrives tomorrow!

I will never, ever update the OS. Period.

And of course now that I'm getting a new phone sometime next week Apple will be all "oops, sorry....our bad. We broke the GPS on your phone. Here is a software fix to make it all better."

see this decision, it helped me for my iphone 6 🙂

https://www.ifixit.com/Answers/View/267135/GPS+%26+Bluetooth+work+sporadically.# answer291257

if i understand correctly wifi and gps are linked. I havent had any more issues with GPS since my last post but my Wifi hasn't worked properly since the upgrade/s. i have a work Iphone that I haven't updated iOS on. my personal phone stopped detecting my home wifi and any other signals until I activated Personal Hotspot on my workphone. for some reason my personal phone detected it and connected to it. Once it got connected to it, it finally detected the other wifi networks (our home one and the neighbors). Definitely software issues!

Just did this with the wifes iPhone 6 and it didn't fix it. Got the flex antenna cable from ifixit and their guide is awesome, but it looks like it's definitely a software issue. Wifi works the same, but gps won't zero in after the initial ping. May have to trade hers in for the SE.

My success was short lived but it was the first time I saw the other networks in a while. just proves that this was a software issue rather than hardware as apple seem to state. I am already considering getting an android phone for my next upgrade.

Apple care sent me a replacement iPhone although mine was out of warranty. I found it very interesitng that although the genius bar agreed there was nothing wrong with the hardware after preforming tests the Apple Care rep insisted it must be hardware. Honestly as long as my GPS is working as well as the other features of the phone are working I don't care what they call it. The replacement phone works great so far! It was mailed the day I called and received the next day with a return ship label and box to return the old one. The trip to the Apple Store was a pain but I think the testing is what convinced them to replace it. Unfortunately the stores are not able to make the call at their level. So happy Apple did the right thing 🙂

THIS FIXED IT: So @djtroyan pointed me in the right direction. Unbelievably, for me it was hardware. I was split between the two, software vs. hardware, but I was leaning toward software. If you've seen my posts to this thread, I was also a launch day iPhone 6 buyer. My phone had been dropped a few times and I've also needed the screen replaced twice. Either way, my phone's body was badly damaged and it was actually bent a little (I've been more careful recently). I am not 100% sure what did the trick for me, but here's my fix and links to the parts that worked in my case.

• WiFi antenna signal flex cable
• WiFi antenna signal cover bracket
• Rear cover panel and mid frame assembly (I was skeptical about the quality of this, but it's about 99% identical to the original and 100% better looking than my original phone body)
• Vibrator (this isn't part of the GPS fix, but I can confirm it's a good part if yours is broken)

I used "GPS Status" from the app store to monitor what was going on with my phone. Before the repair it showed "Poor Fix" and "No Fix" constantly. I followed the iFixit guide for all the repairs and they're awesome. The flex cable was the last to arrive, so I started with the body the other day hoping it would do something. I noticed that my phone had finger prints throughout (probably from the screen replacements from the Apple store, don't they use gloves?). Using qtips and Windex (I thought that was a strange suggestion, but iFixit recommended it along with isopropyl alcohol, which I didn't have), I did a thorough cleaning of all the contact points on and off the logic board and brackets. It's important for these to be clean for the phone to work properly, if you don't have latex gloves or finger cots, order some from amazon when you order your parts. After the cable came in, I opened the phone back up and removed the logic board and flex cable and took a look at the flex cable with a magnifying hood (I bought this for another project and it's amazing when working on phones, watches or anything small) and noticed the center connection port on one of the 4 connection ports was broken off! I'm not sure if this was me, or if the original cable was a defect and was weak to begin with, but I took my time and didn't rush any of this and was very careful with every step, who knows. These connections are extremely tiny, anyways...

Conclusion:

• After body replacement, I noticed I was getting better cell signal, however, GPS and WiFi were non-existent

  I was barely able to connect to WiFi for the day then suddenly I couldn't see any signals at all, it was like I turned off WiFi

• After replacing all the parts above, my WiFi was picking up more signals that I could imagine were available and my GPS was working amazingly
• Here is a screenshot from my phone when I just went on a drive
• 

I am so done with this issue and repair, this has been something that has been plaguing me for months now and was really making me angry, plus the lack of support at Apple wasn't helping. I really hope this is a step in the right direction for all of you and fixes your phones as well (for the brave that are willing to take this sucker apart). Remember, this was what fixed the problem for me and the issues some of you are experiencing could very well be something different.

At the end of the day, I have the look/feel and functionality of a brand new iPhone 6

*disclaimer, take this repair on at your own risk, or use this example as a reinforcing argument at the Apple genius bar

Well, after your post I thought I'd take the phone apart again and I went through all the brackets and checked all the connectors, including the flex antenna and the gps/wifi antenna as well. All looked good and no connectors missing. Cleaned everything off with alcohol swabs, even though I work with latex gloves on just in case any hand oil or substance got on it. everything looked good and I reassembled it. Still no go on the gps. The best it will locate to is 165m horizontal accuracy, 20m vertical accuracy, while my phone shows 10m and 4m horizonL and vertical accuracy. Something interesting is that my wife's phone won't get a reading for speed or course which may indicate an issue with the accelerometer. My tracks both when I move it. That may be why her phone won't track if the accelerometer doesn't work properly.

I guess the point I was making was at the magnified/microscopic level, who knows what could be wrong. Physically speaking, it may look good, but is defective, I didn't initially see the problem with mine until I brought it up to 10x magnification, the center post of the connector is about 2-3 times the thickness of a hair. It also wasn't seating properly when I tried to plug the original cable back in, you definitely want it to click/snap into place. IMO for $6.23 (for both the cable and the bracket together), it might be worth swapping those out and seeing what happens.

I understood what you were saying. I did in fact replace the flex antenna and wifi antenna from ifixit and neither fixed the gps issue. I'm adept at disassembling the ipad and iphone dating back to the originals and have taken them apart many times without issues. Your issues likely only affected your phone and replacing those parts fixed it. In your case, you had the screen replaced previously by someone else and that work may have caused other issues. My wife's phone had never been opened when she began having gps problems after ios9. I can feel when the parts snap together and the new flex cable and wifi antenna were installed properly and did not fix the issue.

I have definitely fixed my iphone6 with the same problem! Not sure when it started, but has been an issue for too long, driving me crazy. of course tried all the toggle switching and resetting of settings. I did notice that immediately after resetting settings that I would get the maps working correctly for a short period of time (like the first time I used again). But did not last. Finally stopped in at Apple. Same results as all here, hardware check all good, backed up phone, erased and reset up again (and I wasn't hopeful). offered to sell me a new one for $300 if it didn't work. Well, maps worked great all the way home. I was happy. Went to the store and texted my wife. Texts were acting funny. I've been through this before, you see we share an apple id... I would fix it as I was roaming around the store... Hmmm, under settings, messenges, her # was listed and checked, mine listed, but the phone seemed to be having issue allowing me to check my # and uncheck hers... On my way home, guess what? maps not working! Same old problem as before, constant difficulty locating me... Anyone here picking up on anything yet? I specifically asked the apple store rep if sharing an apple id would affect maps in any way. No, she said... My question to anyone following this a or anyone having this issue; DO YOU SHARE AN APPLE ID? If you do, this IS your problem. I don't know why, I cant explain it and I cannot believe no one has figured this out yet. My wife signed out of our apple id, I deleted her phone # out of my settings and guess what? my maps, locating and gps all work flawlessly now, everytime. We have set her up with her own Id now and all is well. Its this simple folks. WHY DOESNT APPLE KNOW THIS??? I am sure one of you all or an apple geek will understand what the problem is. I suppose somehow, the phone was confused of its own identity and this was the cause of the entire problem. Anyway, I hope this will be helpful to some.

Same problem here... First batch of AT&T iPhone 6. Tried all of the software fixes, but reluctant to do the antenna swap, though I guess I don't have anything to lose. Anyone other success stories with getting Apple to fess-up?

Pheenblat wrote:

Same problem here... First batch of AT&T iPhone 6. Tried all of the software fixes, but reluctant to do the antenna swap, though I guess I don't have anything to lose. Anyone other success stories with getting Apple to fess-up?

What you have to lose: If you attempt a hardware repair yourself Apple will not replace your defective phone for $299. You will have to pay full price.

Thank you djtroyan and jrock!

I replaced the flex cable and the Wifi antenna bracket cover (though I doubt that I had a reason to do so) linked in Jrock's post.

This completely fixed my GPS issue that popped up sometime around the 9.2.1 release.

I had no GPS signal, like many of you, and now is is again working as it should be. I think that I was having some Bluetooth issues as well that I was blaming on my headphones, but it seems like it was my phone. That is gone too.

Release day AT&T iPhone 6 (64GB) like many of the posters here.

For the record, I tried just about every suggestion here, including jfoxtrot9's note about shared Apple IDs as I am using the same Apple ID on two iphones. Nothing fixed it.

The two parts and a set of repair tools cost me $20 shipped. Total repair time was about 30 minutes. It wasn't hard, just tedious at times.

iFixit guide was great.

No visible damage to the naked eye to the flex cable, but I wonder what I would see under a magnifying hood.

I'm so happy that I have a working iPhone again. Thanks for all of the suggestions in this thread!

Apple has some kind of a weird problem here that so many of us have tied to a software release, but fixed with hardware replacement.

Just got off the phone with Apple Care... basically not helpful other than running through some of the software fixes discussed on here. Asked me to submit an issue through the Apple Maps app and that one of their engineers will follow-up with me. I won't hold my breath.