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GPS doesn't work when roaming (Canada to Japan)

A

askywalker

macrumors regular
Original poster
Aug 18, 2007
167
0
I have an iPhone with Rogers (Canada) and am in Japan for a month. Things work well with the iPhone roaming except the GPS - Maps, InstaMapper and any other gps related service will not work. The GPS worked great in Canada.

Anyone know if it is something I should be able to fix? I am roaming on NTT's network - service is fine otherwise. I also have a p905i (from NTT) that works fine with GPS - so I know the GPS signal and service is ok.
 
Yeah, do you have "data roaming" in that romaing plan of yours?
iPhone downloads their map images through data roaming all the time. There are no saved map images on the iPhone itself. So if you do not have access to data in Japan, then you won't get the maps...

Do you see the blue dot (GPS dot) in the map but no map image? Because that's what happens to me here in Korea. Haha
 
So the GPS maps can't use wifi for their data? I am connected to wifi, the phone is working great for all other data services. Insta-mapper shows that there is no GPS when locating - which is strange cause it isn't even pulling any maps - just trying to get a lock on the satellites.

Maps shows me as still back in Toronto - clicking the blue dot doesn't move me to Japan...

I have power cycled the phone. If it needs to use 3G data rather than wifi it would be strange. This reminds me of the Blackberry GPS pain that we were all feeling - when the apps that used GPS would keep 'losing' their connection to the BB GPS. But at least a couple of reboots (or loading Telus Navigator or something first) would get it going.

I suppose I could call Rogers - but my luck hasn't been very good dealing with their support. Last few calls have resulted in 'restore the iPhone from a backup' as one of their first (and totally unnecessary) troubleshooting steps.
 
Unless you're constantly connected to wifi while driving I dont think google maps would be able to pull up your map information that fast.
You need a constant internet connection to run google maps for GPS.
Untill a true GPS app comes up where maps are stored on the phone instead of googles server.

askywalker said:
So the GPS maps can't use wifi for their data?QUOTE]
Click to expand...
 
kdarling said:
When using just raw GPS data (no server assistance), it can take 12 or more minutes to download the necessary orbit data from the satellites.

How long does your iPhone stay powered up while it's trying to get a lock?
Click to expand...

Beautiful - thank you! I left it on the InstaMapper app while it was trying to locate. It gave a couple of warning messages (about it taking longer than usual to get a lock and to visit the help site), but after about 8 or 9 minutes it suddenly locked! Now all the apps are enjoying the GPS!

So - my phone was on for a week and a half in Japan, rebooting numerous times, and in mapping/gps enabled apps for long periods of time. But obviously it needed more time in the gps app to get the lock! thanks for the tip!

:D :D
 
You're very welcome!

If you move more than about fifty miles or leave it off for a few hours, it will need to search for satellites, reload their orbit data, figure out the correct time again, and read from at least four satellites to get a lock.

I think that a lot of times that people think their GPS doesn't work autonomously, it's because the phone shuts off before it can get the info it needs.
 
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