Does having wifi on help location services?

stonyboys · Nov 14, 2012, 02:50 PM

Even when you're not connected to wifi?

sammich · Nov 14, 2012, 02:55 PM

Yes.

The iPhone (among many others) constantly receive discovery packets from other Wireless Access Points (WAP) while it's out and about. These packets contain unique IDs and whenever location services is activated, it'll send a recent bunch of these to Apple's version of Skyhook (a WAP location database) so it'll find your rough location real quick.

Simply put it's going: hey, I was near a place called this, tell me where this is.

Nov 14, 2012, 02:50 PM	#1
stonyboys macrumors regular Join Date: Oct 2012	Does having wifi on help location services? Even when you're not connected to wifi?
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Nov 14, 2012, 02:55 PM	#2
sammich macrumors Demi-God Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: The same place as my missing avatar.	Yes. The iPhone (among many others) constantly receive discovery packets from other Wireless Access Points (WAP) while it's out and about. These packets contain unique IDs and whenever location services is activated, it'll send a recent bunch of these to Apple's version of Skyhook (a WAP location database) so it'll find your rough location real quick. Simply put it's going: hey, I was near a place called this, tell me where this is. __________________ Official MR IRC Slow news day? Never fear, Digitimes is here. Serving up free hits for techblogs everywhere.
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