iPhone 8 GPS problems

OK, just to repeat: if you do that "factory reset", remember to backup first and reset via iTunes/USB to restart with iOS11.3 (if you reset from the iPhone's internal settings, you will probably get the old iOS installed at the factory).

DISCLAIMER: do the above at your own risk. You may want to try removing and re-inserting the SIM card while the phone is shut down. I don't know if the solution works using that alternative method, though.

I have this issue too. After multiple attempts at solving the issue with phone support, I went to Genius Bar. Genius ran diagnostics etc. and ultimately replaced my phone. He reinstalled the iOS from iCloud Backup but told me that if I continued to encounter the same issue, I should try reinstalling from as a new phone because it was likely a software issue. The GPS worked fine for a day or so, and then it started getting lost again. I have noticed that if I turn the phone side to side it resets and finds its way again, but I'm not willing to take that as a solution because it's not the safest thing to do while driving. My next step is to do a clean reinstall as a new phone without using the iCloud Backup. I will post the results here.

I also bought a map. For the digital natives among us, we used to have these paper maps. Some of them are large pieces of paper folded up accordion-style, so that you would have to either have a passenger reading the map and navigating for you, or you would have to pull over, unfold the map on the hood of your car, and figure out where to go from there. Then you would have to either remember the instructions or write down directions for yourself. So that's where I'm at now. It's kind of fun, actually.

If you have problems with your compass. Try setting your compass to True North (go to Settings, Compass).

Also make sure Compass Calibration is on. See here

https://support.pointer-app.com/support/activate-compass-calibration-in-the-syst em-services/

This might be a better explanation

https://www.getdroidtips.com/proper-compass-calibration-iphone-x/

If that doesn't work, it is probably another issue.

Akuphon,

During that 1.1km walk did you check at regular intervals that you had a GPS-based location rather than one based on Wifi and Cellular only, which is going to be inaccurate? I advise you to stop walking when checking it to avoid accidents!

Other options are to try the SIM trick (at your own risk; see above) and/or factory reset your phone (backit up first, factory reset it, and test it using the native Apple Maps app BEFORE restoring your backup).

Yes, twice. My phone is offered by the company I work for and we have quite good customer service for phones.

About gps satellites. To get a fix three satellites is bare minimum and then the accuracy won’t be very good. Four satellites is the minimum for three dimensional positioning. The more satellites the better accuracy.

The app GPS Diagnostic sadly doesn’t specify how many satellites it is connected to. >4 has only one bar in the diagram. In my case that bar is usually very low or even 0 %. Also the first three satellites have many times low signal qualities.

The accuracy for modern phones with gps and glonass chips should be well under 10 m. I don’t consider 16 m accurate at all. I am a geocacher and 16 m accuracy makes finding caches very difficult. On open terrain the accuracy should be more like 6 m (which my previous iPhone 6s was able to get). For comparison my dedicated Garmin gps is able to obtain 3 m accuracy.

Then the other matters:

- SIM trick didn’t do anything.

- Compass should have nothing to do with getting an accurate location. It is only for getting a heading. Anyways, it is calibrated.

- I have iOS 11.4.1. It doesn’t help.

- Turning off location services for all other apps cannot be the solution. I need location services on multiple apps.

- This issue isn’t limited only to my neighbourhood. I experience it everywhere anytime.

- My carrier has its own network of base stations.

I am pretty sure this is a software bug that Apple needs to fix asap. Sadly it seems that Apple hasn’t even confirmed this bug.

Sorry to hear that. You didn't mention your barometer. You could also check that too, although I doubt it would improve your planar accuracy.

Does the GPS Diagnostic app give you a reading of 50m while showing orange or green GPS bars? That is barely better than the reading of 65m the app gives me when turning off GPS and relying purely on Wifi and Cellular networks.

If it is regularly 50m, I would guess something is broken, rather than just inferior performance relative to old models.

There have been other fixes relating to vehicles and Bluetooth systems in this thread, but I think you are having problems just walking/jogging with your phone.

Another possibility is your company supplied you with three phones from the same faulty batch of iPhone 8 models, but that is unlikely.

Grasping at straws here.

If you can't get consistent readings below 20m, don't bother with Apple Tech phone service, go into the store and demand ask patiently for answers. Sigh... I feel your pain... this is total self-service... the blind leading the blind...

I'm on my second iPhone 8 plus. Had a whole history with apple support, they identified it as an hardware failure, but when the new phone also gave issues with accuracy, they had to do some more research.

When I finally contacted them for a status update, they said the behavior was within the parameters for the iPhone 8 plus. The support guy literally told me: "The GPS for the iPhone 5C and 6S (my reference models) are more stable and accurate than the iPhone 8+."

It seems they will not recognize the issues with the GPS for iPhone 8/8+ and iPhone X. And I don't understand why not more people are complaining and why no tech site has written anything about it. iOS 12 is around the corner, 11.2.5 was supposed to fix it, we're on 11.4.1 and they will just not help their users. I think nobody is using their GPS enough to notice the awful accuracy and constant drift.

the.JoOLz,

What level of accuracy are we talking about? Many of us here downloaded GPS Diagnostic which costs almost nothing from the App Store. Since "fixing" my iPhone X, I now get readings of between 10-20m fairly consistently. I am curious what their parameters are.

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.

Have you checked your gps accuracy with anything else than Waze? When navigating on Waze it locks your position to the road. I also can navigate with Apple maps. It just may be a couple of ten meters behind.

The problem really comes into life when I use an app that shows your real location (not locked to road). For example, it’s impossible to track my sports activity with my phone. 20-50 m accuracy just isn’t enough. Even when walking a straight line in open terrain results a route that is nothing close to a straight line.

PS: Jihuii,

I checked your previous posts in other threads. Your Intel chip may have caused problems with cellular reception, as some sources say Qualcomm is better/faster although other sources seem to say the opposite.

https://www.reddit.com/r/tmobile/comments/7bmqp4/qualcomm_iphone_x_vs_intel_ipho ne_x/

https://www.macrumors.com/2017/09/28/iphone-8-cellular-bandwidth-tests/

Also read the section "Some iPhone X handsets are slower than others" in this article:

https://www.macworld.co.uk/news/iphone/iphone-x-problems-3639808/

Either way, the top link above says "using GPS both work just as expected without any delay" (admittedly this was just one guy testing iPhone Xs)

Also, even if the cellular connection is a bit slower due to the chip, that would probably only affect the "Assisted" part of the Assisted-GPS system, which in turn would affect the TTFF (Time-to-first-fix) i.e. the time it takes for your GPS app to show your position accurately on the map. I don't think having a slightly slower cellular reception would affect accuracy during your journey itself...

Plus, as I mentioned I had a Qualcomm chip, not an Intel one, and I had problems. In fact I still do, to some extent on my replacement iPhone which also has a Qualcomm chip, so going Qualcomm is not necessarily the solution -at least not in my case.

I have to report that the GPS issue is not just pertains to iPhone X but also the 6s, my 6s GPS was working just fine before iOS11, I even got the device replaced by Apple and the new device works fine for a certain amount of time and then the TFF is in 10s of seconds or minutes. Ever since I have found out about the SIM trick, I have been able to reset the GPS and make it function as before, before iOS11.

Prior to the SIM trick, I would restore the phone as a new phone and that would help in the short term. I was getting frustrated with this process. SIM trick is far more livable than restoring the phone. Resetting network and location/privacy setting did not help with the GPS issues.

I have observed that after traveling internationally and using a different SIM abroad and then returning back to US caused GPS issues readily. SIM trick helped a lot. Thanks for posting that here on the forum.

This guy reports having 11000 iphones in the same company having the same problem:

Re: GPS not working after update to IOS11

I've heard maybe two people have had luck with replacing their SIM cards, that's about it as far as fixes. Idk how successful that is though.