iPhone 8 GPS problems

So far I agree getting a refund is the only solution to this issue.

1. Issue only appears on iPhone X and 8/8+, not on older generations;
2. Multiple updates failing to rectify this issue, ever since release of X/8/8+;
3. Not a standalone issue meaning QA failure.

Finally I decided: **** it, I'm gonna replace it in another store.

The story is, My girlfriend and I bought our 2 iPhone X's from the same store, while a friend of us bought hers from another store. Our 2 devices are screwing up while our friend's works perfectly fine. So I drove ~20 miles to that store and replaced the 2 iPhones.

Problem solved. No car related mistry, no endless backup, reset and restore...

This is simply a Quality Control FAILURE.

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

PS: also turn as many apps in Location Services to Off or While using. Only use the setting Always for emergency apps. Also turn off whatever you don't need in Settings>Privacy>Locations Services>System Services. And quit (hold, swipe upward) any apps that might be running in background when using your GPS app. Plus, give it a few extra seconds before moving/walking/running to find your location at the start. I do these things (and the things mentioned above) and my problems haven't recurred. Not sure which one if any did the trick. It really is a crapshoot and possibly a crapphone 😝

I had the same GPS issue with my iPhone 7+. I thought maybe my gps was broken so I upgraded to the iPhone 8+ and still had the issue. Someone on this thread suggested removing the phone from the magnetic car mount (which I use) and the gps worked flawlessly. I put the phone back on the magnetic mount and the gps immediately froze. Removed the phone from the mount again and the gps worked fine. Tried this several times and the results were consistent. Seems like the magnetic mount is somehow interfering with the gps. Hope this helps someone.

100% my experience. Turning the phone on its side fixes the problem ... Made me think maybe the metal in the top of the heated windshield or the metal around the rear view mirror are "blocking" the signal. However when I move the phone away from its cradle, it will reacquire the signal from the vertical position so I'm still not sure what the root cause is. Of note, this happened with my last iphone 6s in the same car (Land Rover LR4)

I also have this problem, but Apple is not aware nor heard of this issue.

For those who don't know the issue, this is not software issue. Model A1901 with Intel chip have GPS hardware issue, model A1865 or previous models such as iPhone 6 or 6s with Qualcomm GPS chip never had this issue. Apple are unwilling to replace the phones for another model.

Next generation of iPhones will all have Intel chip/GPS.

Update:

Since doing the “SIM trick” back in May (do so at your own risk; some sites advise against SIM insertion/removal while phone is on), I have been able to use GPS apps on my iPhone X with sufficient accuracy.

However, finding the initial location i.e. “the time to first fix - TTFF” has grown gradually longer over time. Yesterday, it didn’t work at all at the start of my jog, and when I tested it later, it only found a fix after more than a minute of standing stationary.

I decided that I had had enough and tried the SIM trick a second time. It worked again! The TTFF is much shorter now.

Nothing has changed on the phone as far as I can see. Same iOS, same apps, same carrier, same location. My wife’s iPhone 6S has the same iOS, and testing apps, and uses the carrier as my iPhone X and is tested at the same locations, BUT her GPS has functioned perfectly the whole time, with no delays etc! The only difference is that I have some additional apps such as Motion X - I don't see how that should affect the functioning of the phone, and if it is, then Apple is responsible, as Apple checks 3rd party apps downloaded via the App Store.

I have to do this procedure every time the lag on my GPS/A-GPS system occurs, while my wife doesn’t. This suggests there is a software or hardware design flaw that has affected a large segment of iPhone users for whom the SIM trick has worked. The only other solution was factory resetting the phone when I replaced it with an identical iPhone X but the problem soon recurred even when I manually set up the phone from scratch!! In these cases, I strongly suspect there is a software or hardware design flaw related to the cellular network/SIM card that seems to be affecting the A-GPS function.

GPS is a pretty basic function to get wrong for a high-end device as expensive as the iPhone X. This issue has dragged on for ages now - look at all the posts in these forums and elsewhere - and yet there has been no public acknowledgement of it. Not even a clear reference to the problem in iOS update notes as far as I am aware - someone please correct me if I am wrong on that.

I wasn't being dismissive, just noting I don't have the issue, no one I know has the issue, no iPhone I've ever tried in an Apple Store has had the issue, and in general when an issue is widespread there are a lot more responses to a thread than there have been here. I literally have never seen a phone exhibit the issue you state and I'm always playing with store demo phones, locally and across the country when I travel.

Do note however that there are limitations on how GPS works. If you're in a steel building, odds are your phone will not be able to figure out where it is if Wi-Fi is shut off as there's no way to receive GPS signals without a direct, unobstructed view of one or more GPS satellites or mild obstruction like a residence. Shopping malls, office buildings and urban areas mean you very likely will not get enough of a GPS signal to locate yourself (which is why the GPS is called "Assisted GPS.")

I also stated that if you feel you are having this issue, your best bet is to visit the Genius Bar at an Apple Store. Why? Numbers of posts here don't matter as much as what Apple sees going on in their stores with their support personnel. If you exchange your phone for a new one and it has the same issue, keep insisting they exchange your phone with another until you get one that works. Just to make sure it's the phone, set it up in the store as a new phone without restoring any of your content to it and see if it works then. If they say yours is behaving normally, compare it to a demo phone on the floor. If yours acts differently, ask why. Don't be afraid to get store management involved if need be. I'm not being snide here, I've had to use the "Mine does it but your demo does not" rule a time or two in the past in order to get something fixed. Since there are always at least three or four demos on the floor, be sure to try them all.

Once again, this isn't to be dismissive, it's the reality of the situation.

Apple can't fix something they don't know is broken, and posts on a message board aren't going to sway them as much as having to give out two, three or more replacement phones if the situation you describe is as common as you say it is.

Posts here cost Apple nothing; replacement phones directly impact their cost centers.

JGostl wrote:

Does anyone know if when CarPlay is engaged does the iPhone rely on the car's GPS? If so, that put the problem squarely in Honda's lap.

No one knows for sure, but several people have tested it and have found that at the very least CarPlay will use the car's GPS to aid in location finding if not rely upon it altogether, as the car's GPS system is usually better positioned to receive GPS signals than the receiver inside the phone when the phone is inside the car.

Still hates my magnetic mount, guess i need to stick to the bulkier cradle mount

Also, because it's been buried, it's probably your car messing with the GPS signal on your X or 8. See video below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyjfpZzsfps

I think there is still something to it since I still think there’s something interfering with the GPS signal, maybe like XM radio or AM signal interfering. Removing it from the proximity to the signal could solve it, temporarily obviously, but would also explain why some people still have the issue depending on the strength of the interfering signal, if that were in fact the cause.

I’m still curious if anyone is in my position where I’ve tested the same phone in different cars with different results, which would seem like an environmental cause.

I want to follow up and say that my short success of removing the phone from the mount, and holding it no longer works. It truly seems like when it loses signal, and you pick the phone up and move it around, it can regain a GPS signal. In addition it seems like something in my car my be interfering with the signal.

I would imagine the culprits being either AM/FM radio, XM Radio, my car's own GPS signal, or an EZ-Pass.

The replacement iPhone 8+ (GSM only model) that I got from the Genius Bar two weeks ago, has been working fine with all of the navigation apps. It came with iOS 11.0 installed and even with that version, the GPS was fine out of the box, so my original phone definitely had a marginal or defective GPS. The loss of GPS signal was consistently reproducible by walking outdoors under California clear skies, so car interference or environmental factors could be ruled out.

Update on my troubleshooting with apple:

Last Friday Apple had me install a diagnostic profile on my iPhone X and re-create the issue using GPS.

Today they called me back and told me that the engineering team had identified the bug based on the logs and will be addressing in a future update - no ETA.

So, good news they seem to have IDed the problem, bad news is they had no feedback on when it would be addressed.