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Does wifi only iPad 3 have a gps chip?

P

prism

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Dec 6, 2006
1,060
389
Clearly no aGPS according to apple specs but I get the impression it uses something beyond just wifi geolocation because when I call up maps, it's almost instantaneous, precise and the small gps logo appears on the top right!
The iPad 2 was much slower and imprecise in comparison, what gives?
 
H

homeboy

macrumors 6502
Aug 23, 2007
467
1
London
If you have location service enabled, especially features like "find my iPad" our location has already been recorded before you open the maps app.
 
A

admanimal

macrumors 68040
Apr 22, 2005
3,531
2
prism said:
Clearly no aGPS according to apple specs but I get the impression it uses something beyond just wifi geolocation because when I call up maps, it's almost instantaneous, precise and the small gps logo appears on the top right!
The iPad 2 was much slower and imprecise in comparison, what gives?
Click to expand...

The icon is for location services, not GPS specifically.
 
tmoerel

tmoerel

Suspended
Jan 24, 2008
1,005
1,567
prism said:
Clearly no aGPS according to apple specs but I get the impression it uses something beyond just wifi geolocation because when I call up maps, it's almost instantaneous, precise and the small gps logo appears on the top right!
The iPad 2 was much slower and imprecise in comparison, what gives?
Click to expand...

No it doesn't have a GPS. But using wifi access point triangulation it sort of can give a position.
 
U

urherenow

macrumors newbie
Apr 22, 2012
2
0
Hold up. How exactly does using wifi work? I purchased my new iPad when I was in Guam, and turned off location services after playing with the map a bit. Now, I'm in my home in Japan, with a U.S. IP address (via a VPN service my router sends everything through) but when I just turned on location services and opened the map, it showed me EXACTLY where I am in less than3 seconds!

My iPad is the latest model, 64GB wifi only.
 
iAppl3Fan

iAppl3Fan

macrumors 6502a
Sep 8, 2011
796
23
urherenow said:
Hold up. How exactly does using wifi work? I purchased my new iPad when I was in Guam, and turned off location services after playing with the map a bit. Now, I'm in my home in Japan, with a U.S. IP address (via a VPN service my router sends everything through) but when I just turned on location services and opened the map, it showed me EXACTLY where I am in less than3 seconds!

My iPad is the latest model, 64GB wifi only.
Click to expand...

Your IP is still JPN that's why you're iPad picked up your location as JPN. The VPN is just a secure tunnel for you to do work remotely to access corporate resources.
 
blueroom

blueroom

macrumors 603
Feb 15, 2009
6,381
26
Toronto, Canada
The WiFi only iPads use location services based on IP address. The same thing works when using Google maps on your PC or Mac browser.
 
brand

brand

macrumors 601
Oct 3, 2006
4,390
456
127.0.0.1
urherenow said:
when I just turned on location services and opened the map, it showed me EXACTLY where I am in less than3 seconds!

My iPad is the latest model, 64GB wifi only.
Click to expand...

Given you only have the WiFi iPad that does not have GPS and is only using cellular tower and WiFi triangulation it is not showing you exactly where you are. GPS is much more accurate than cellular or WiFi triangulation and would be considered exact when compared to them. Consumer GPS is usually considered accurate to within 10-15 meters.
 
U

urherenow

macrumors newbie
Apr 22, 2012
2
0
No, my ip address is a US IP address, just like I said. ABC, CW, Netflix, you name it, have no problem working for me.

This is wifi only, again, so there's no way cellular triangulation has anything to do with it.
 
Last edited:
J

jimHdk

macrumors regular
May 10, 2010
105
0
On a WiFi-only iPad location services works by accessing a database of router physical locations. This database is accessed by using the MAC address of the router. Note that you do not actually have to be connected to a router for this to work.

This has nothing to do with the IP address that you are using.
 
U

Ultrafied

macrumors newbie
Jun 6, 2010
12
0
Riverside, CA
Nmea?

Will the WiFi only iPad be able to use the GPS capability (streaming NMEA) of the Novatel MiFi 4260L? If so, will the normal GPS applications like Garmin or CoPilot work with it or would they have to be re-written to accept the NMEA data stream?
 
M

Menneisyys2

macrumors 603
Jun 7, 2011
5,997
1,101
As soon as it's jailbroken, you'll be able to install the GPS hack on it to connect to external GPS receivers over BT. It works flawlessly on my iDevices.
 
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