iPhone 8 GPS problems

Brice,

Thanks for the article. I read your subsequent deleted post - hope you haven't been blocked for ever this time!

The Terms and Conditions of these forums are here Apple Support Communities Use Agreement

I guess your suggestions that we contact the media or support, and your posting of related publicly available contacts fell foul of a broad interpretation of this rule "Do not post polls or petitions or links to same."

Everyone,

Can anybody point me to a help forum where we don't get censored like this?

JiangZemin wrote:

P.S.: I am talking about GPS from satellite, with cellular, WiFi and Bluetooth all turned off.

Which is the biggest issue.

Location services is most accurate when Bluetooth and Wi-Fi are turned on to assist GPS in finding locations, especially where GPS reception is spotty, blocked or GPS just doesn't provide a very accurate result; by definition the US Government says:

For example, GPS-enabled smartphones are typically accurate to within a 4.9 m (16 ft.) radius under open sky

GPS.gov: GPS Accuracy

For greatest accuracy, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi must be turned on.

Turn Location Services and GPS on or off on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support

Update: I just noticed that his post arrived in my mail alerts. It was not offensive. It was not recommending we sign up for a poll. I see nothing contravening the rules of this forum in his post. I would be very interested to know from Richard (or from the censor - big chance of that!) why his post got removed/blocked. Odd that it got replaced by xxx. Other posts from other contributors that get blocked don't appear at all in this thread with or without x's - I only see the blocked posts in my mail alerts. Very mysterious. Perhaps Richard deleted his own text for some reason?

Here are the rules if anyone wants to check them

Apple Support Communities Use Agreement

The overheating is the only solid explanation for the problem we have in the (36 pages - 2600 I have this question too) "GPS not working after update to IOS11" thread.

Why? Because the only lasting solution ever found to the iPhone 6 GPS problem was to replace the GPS antenna ("flex cable"). You can see two pictures of the antenna here in that same thread (one is the one I replaced).

The mesh seems to be the antenna. It seems to have moved from its connector which would explain a bad reception.

It seems obvious that it is glued to the part under it. If for some reason the phone overheated it could have made the glue melt and the antenna move slightly enough to create the satellite connection problems we all know.

If iOS11 toyed with the battery as it has been demonstrated to have done maybe upgrading made the battery overheat and disconnected the antenna.

These success stories are for the iPhone 6 only as it seems we are the only ones that can buy the part and replace it. I'm letting you guys know because it might be related to your problem.

If this overheating-melts-the-glue-and-disconnects-the-GPS-antenna is what is causing our issues then it means our phones can be broken remotely. . . . . .

Mikeluca67

Don't trust the Tech diagnostics - I don't see how they can test your GPS chips if the phone is indoors at the time.

Backup your phone to iTunes, do a factory reset while plugged into iTunes for the latest iOS (not through the phones internal settings, which will reset you to whatever iOS was installed at the factory), and test out the GPS using Apple Maps. It won't take you long and you would have your entire phone backed up to iTunes anyway. If that test fails, take the phone in that initialized state to a Genius Bar, and get a replacement phone or replace the GPS chip. You may have to demonstrate the GPS failure outside, but I doubt it (I didn't have to). I am not sure, but the Genius Bar people seem aware there is a hardware problem. Good luck!

Testing and replacement are discussed on page 38 of this thread: Re: GPS not working after update to IOS11

Mikeluca67,

When you swapped your phone, did you test it in its "virgin state" i.e. before restoring it from your backup?

To rule out software bugs, why not try backing up your phone and resetting it via iTunes to get the latest iOS (not via your phone's internal settings which will reinstall the old iOS) and then test the GPS on Apple Maps before restoring your apps and settings etc. For Apple Maps you need to get the "ping effect" with light blue circles radiating outward, like ripples from a stone thrown into water. If you just see a light blue circle around the darker blue point, I was told that just means your location is based on cell tower triangulation and Wifi signals only. I would do that test before re-installing any apps or settings.

If it doesn't work properly after doing all that, then get another replacement as you probably were given another dud.

I replaced my iPhone X and the GPS is working fine now. Just to be safe, I didn't restore the replacement from my backup. It was a hassle, but not as much trouble as I had to imagined, thanks to a lot of my stuff being on the cloud.

See the discussion here also Re: iPhone X GPS accuracy is weak

Since we're talking about the GPS tech behind it, here's an interesting observation if anyone can benefit from it. Compare the specification of these two phones:

iPhone 6s - Technical Specifications - Apple

iPhone X - Technical Specifications - Apple

Both 6S and X (and everything in-between) have "Assisted GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, and QZSS", while 5S & SE do not.

I have never not experienced this location issue on a 6S device, not once. And this goes for our personal 6S and all of the store tested ones.

Here's where it gets interesting though. Look at the snapshot of 6S specs from September 2017: https://web.archive.org/web/20170912193802/https://www.apple.com/iphone-6s/specs /

There is no mention of Galileo and QZSS back then. Even if this was retroactively added via a software update, for whatever reason the 6S doesn't have any issues with Galileo and QZSS.

Someone says in this thread that Galileo is backwards compatible so it may be possible that it is indeed a software update: Iphone compatibility with Galileo satellites. I'm thinking Apple would probably have to put a disclaimer* for legal reason on the 6S specification page were it exclusive to the new hardware as well.

Either way, I'll try to confirm whether our 6S supports Galileo if any app like GPS Diagnostics can tell me such information.

@91467

Apple's diagnostic tool can't test the GPS functions if you are indoors with no GPS access when they run the test.

I am not sure from your YouTube video, but that situation doesn't look good. If you put Apple Maps in regular mode (not directions), it should normally show a blue circle that is constantly pulsating outward (not stationary) when you have a GPS signal.

Is your compass working okay? I turned mine off, on, off in Location settings (I have it set to off now), and set True North to "on" (settings>compass>True North). No idea if that helped, but worth a try. You can also recalibrate it by opening up compass, and swiping right to second screen then playing with it until it says the things is calibrated.

Also, did the Apple Store give you a proper reason why they wouldn't replace your US phone with a Japanese one?

The Japanese model does indeed differ from the US versions, BUT the Japanese version seems to have all the cellular and wireless specs of both US models, plus more, and an RFID chip (Felica) thrown in for good measure. So it seems most likely that you could use it in both countries, as you suggested. I think the store refused to swap your phone for a Japanese phone because of internal policy issues, not for any technical reason. They ought to give you a reason for not replacing, other than just "we don't do that".

Check these for specs:

https://www.techwalls.com/iphone-x-models-a1865-a1901-a1902-differences/

US iPhone Model A1865 and A1901

https://www.apple.com/iphone-x/specs/

Japanese iPhone Model A1902

https://www.apple.com/jp/iphone-x/specs/

Joyd, Good luck with that. You may want to try removing the SIM card as I described above (at your own risk).

Apple's instructions as of today do not mention turning the phone off here, although that may be their omission:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201337

https://help.apple.com/iphone/11/#/iph3f11fba92

And another discussion's thread seem to say there shouldn't be a major problem.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7468878

Another option would be to 1) remove the SIM card when phone is off, 2) restart the phone without a SIM card in, and 3) insert the SIM once the phone has restarted. Again, do so at your own risk.

Anyway, my iPhone was fine after doing the six steps I listed in my earlier post above. I have had no GPS problem for three days and counting now...

Good to hear my SIM trick worked for you too. You are supposed to turn the power off first, according to some sources, but I did not, and have had no problems for about two weeks now. I noticed that as of today, neither https://help.apple.com/iphone/11/#/iph3f11fba92 or Remove or switch the SIM card in your iPhone or iPad - Apple Support mention turning off the power and/or making sure the power is off first... although that might be an omission on Apple's part. I think my issue was to do with the phone not registering with cell-towers properly, which messed up the "assisted" part of Assisted-GPS system. Rollier in another thread seemed to solve his problem by getting someone to call him on his mobile line, which presumably re-established the connection, although I think he later had problems and resorted to the SIM trick.

- but thanks William, that figure of 4.9 meters accuracy in open space is a useful benchmark.

If Apple is aiming for typical accuracy, Joolz should get that reading in those conditions, i.e. the GPS Diagnostic app should give its optimal reading of plus/minus 10 meters (its scale doesn't go below that).

PS to Joolz, screenshots of the GPS Diagnostic app are shown in this post

Re: GPS not working after update to IOS11

Re. the studies mentioned above:

The summary of that paperfrom Jun 2015 doesn't say what app was used to measure the accuracy, but 1000 users in a hundred countries got a mean accuracy of 4.9 meters, which confirmed the consensus view of about 5 meters for "open sky" situations. It was for typical smartphones, and iPhones are meant to be better than average.

"Open-sky GNSS accuracy with smartphones has often been claimed to be “about 5 meters”, in fact this was the answer to an in-course quiz question in one of the lectures. In this lab, with over one thousand participants in one hundred countries, the measured mean accuracy, remarkably, came to 4.9 meters. Even more interesting, the accuracy in urban areas showed a remarkable correlation with building height."

Another survey in May 2016 said the average accuracy in five big cities with tall buildings was 30m (Boston, MA (21 meters), New York City, NY (27 meters), Austin, TX (28 meters), Washington, D.C. (29 meters), and Chicago, IL (38 meters).

New Research Study Reveals the State of Location Data Accuracy, Finds Average Accuracy for Mobile Devices to be 30 Meter…

However, several people here are having problems with accuracy worse than that in open spaces, not in downtown NY etc.

Is there any reason why 3rd party GPS apps such as GPS Diagnostic wouldn't give accurate readings?

Apple doesn't publish specs, but Joolz above was told "the behavior (of his/her phone) was within the parameters for the iPhone 8 plus", and the staff apparently admitted the GPS system in it was inferior to the older models.

I don't know the percentage, but current estimates is somewhere around 12.7 million iPhone Xs have been shipped worldwide since launch (plus around 8.5 million iPhone 8s and another 8 million iPhone 8 Pluses.)

If even one percent of those users experienced that issue, that would be 127,000, and if one percent of those complained of issues here, that would be somewhere around 1,270 posts here complaining of the issue, and we haven't seen that.

Views aren't a reflection of anything; I've viewed this thread hundreds of times to reply to questions here, yet I've had zero issues.

If you feel it's an issue, take your phone in to be analyzed; there must be some reason for the variance, even if a bug exists as most have had no issues whatsoever.

If there is an issue, only examining a misbehaving phone would allow Apple to track it down.

Genius Bar Reservation and Apple Support Options - Apple

Hi Spacemnspiff

Glad to hear the SIM trick worked for you too. 🙂 If you pass on the advice, it might be a good idea to add a disclaimer that some sites rightly or wrongly advise against SIM removal/reinsertion while phone is on.

Apple's instructions as of today still do not mention turning the phone off here as far as I can see, although that may be their omission/sloppiness:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201337

https://help.apple.com/iphone/11/#/iph3f11fba92

And another discussion's thread as of today seems to say there shouldn't be a major problem.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7468878

I took the risk, if it is one, and had no problems, but people should decide for themselves.