GPS occasional inaccuracy

[ClemTiger0408]

I am noticing that sometimes my GPS is close to being accurate but slightly off enough to be really annoying. For example, if I’m on the highway and there’s an access road that runs parallel, GPS will think I’m on that access road. This is the same on all map apps (Google Maps, Waze, Apple Maps, etc). Rebooting the device resolves the issue but a few days later it will be doing the same thing again until I reboot.

See included image, the car was on the Central Pike road but GPS shows me to the right of it (I wasn’t driving when I took this pic).

I am on a iPhone 13 Pro but this isn’t my first time with this issue. I once replaced an iPhone X with this same issue.

Is there anything I can do about this (other than reboot) or is this an actual hardware issue and need a replacement?

 

[now i see it]

GPS accuracy also depends on how many and the locations of the gps satellites in the sky. When the triangulation isn’t ideal (satellites low on the horizon) accuracy will suffer. Also an iPhone inside a metal can (your car) interferes with the antenna being able to get a good signal.

My experience with hand held GPS units (Garmin) is that an accuracy of about 60 ft or more is pretty normal. That’s enough leeway for mapping software to put you on a parallel road.

 

[Heb1228]

I'm having the same issue and there is definitely a problem going on here. Saw one reddit thread where someone else was having exact same issue. I know what normal GPS wandering is like and this is not that. It will take place across Google Maps/Apple Maps/other location dependent apps all at the same time so it has to be the hardware reporting the wrong location. Never had this issue with any other iPhone I've owned either.

Guy in the reddit thread said he had a genius bar appointment to replace the phone, but I really don't want to do that. If anyone knows of a fix, please let us know.

Swiping up on maps and restarting doesn't help, reports same errant location when the app reloads. But I did just try toggling off location services and back on... that fixed it for now. We'll see how long it holds. I'll try and watch to see when the problem reappears.

 

[Heb1228]

Issue reappeared last night but I didn’t have time to bother with it. Still present this morning so I tried the fix I described above: toggling off, then on again location services. Instantly GPS corrected to an accurate location.

So until this issue is corrected, that’s my advice to anyone else experiencing this:

Settings -> Privacy -> Location Services -> toggle top switch off, then on again.

 

[now i see it]

Thanks for sharing the temporary fix