GPS Problems - iPhone 7 or iOS10?

[ic2]

Being unsure if hardware or software, a replacement unit has been ordered for me.

I was lucky enough to get mine replaced whilst in San Diego (fantastic Apple customer service), after the front facing camera failed for photo & video as well. It was swapped out and now works fine with no GPS issues at all, so I guess in may case it was a hardware issue?

regards

 

[lelloz]

i just noticed the issue occurs only if I have wifi enabled. With 4g only this glitch does not occurs but of course the location is not precise at all. I am going to the apple store tomorrow as well to get mine replaced

 

[mattrg_2000]

I'm having the same problem with one of the first iPhone 7+. I'm hoping it's software.

 

[luckysob]

My wife picked up a iPhone 7 128GB AT&T handset on Thursday (10.0.2). By the end of the day I observed the location problem with the handset and tried a few things that were recommended: turn location services on/off, reset network settings, perform hard reset. She has spent a good part of this afternoon at the Genius Bar trying to get the issue dealt with, which I am imagine could be a handset replacement. A known 2 mile walk was logged as 11 miles. Pokemon Go would not allow the phone to play because of the location bouncing around. Unusable for anything requiring location services.

I also have observed a location error ellipse on my iPhone 5S on "Find my iPhone" since updating to 10.0.2. I have a feeling that there is a HW and SW aspect to this issue. We'll wait and see.

 

[emgee]

Having similar issues... just used my iPhone 7 Plus for the first time with strava and the gps track is a mess - here's a comparison between my gf's 6S (also on 10.0.2) track and mine for a small portion:

https://imgur.com/a/GIcCk

The whole track is like that. Distance was about 40% further than it should have been (girlfriends was accurate), and moving time about half of what it should have been (which is weird considering the gps being all over the place)

Also - this was a ridge top the entire way and 90% clear of trees..

 

[smurfybloke]

Having similar issues... just used my iPhone 7 Plus for the first time with strava and the gps track is a mess - here's a comparison between my gf's 6S (also on 10.0.2) track and mine for a small portion:

https://imgur.com/a/GIcCk

Thanks for posting that screen capture. As post #75 here, that's identical symptoms to what I've experienced on some rides, other rides the track which Location Services feeds my activity apps is fine. Frustrating - intermittent faults are the worst! (Though even the smoothest tracks my 7 records are very noisy compared to my old iPhone 4's data.)

o/t - Strava appears to apply zero filtering to Location Services position data, whereas other apps (e.g. Endomondo) do - filtering obviously smooths noise but cannot fix large position errors. IMHO that point is moot though, since Location Services surely should be outputting filtered position data for apps to consume...?

Since the Apple Genius was unable to identify whether it's an intermittent hardware or software issue (diagnostics predictably reported the phone hardware is fine), my phone is being replaced at my request since I saw no benefit to me by continuing with doubts about the cause. Time will show whether the problem returns...

 

[Kbh159]

I consider this as a serious issue but not sure why Apple or this website doesn't bring this issue to the surface.

I received my Sprint iPhone 7+ (iOS 10.0.2) on the official launch day and encountered the gps issue from day 1. It keep loses signal and catches the nearest cell tower (A-gps) as my current location.

I went to Apple Store and got a replacement phone due to a Bluetooth issue after the genius ran the diagnosis program.

But the GPS problem still exists on the replacement phone. I finally had a chance to drive 8+ hours and tested the gps for the entire trip then I kinda found a pattern.

Turning off LTE instantly resolved the problem: when I was driving in the rural area (with 3G signal) I didn't have any problem with GPS signal then as soon as I was getting close to an urban area the symptom occurred. Then I tested with the LTE off in the urban area, I didn't encounter any GPS signal lost problem so far. In the urban area, with LTE off, I didn't have any problem then as soon as I turned on the LTE, the giant phone lost the signal instantly.

Please tell me anyone thinks this can resolve the issue with software update. I hate going to Apple Store again for a replacement phone.

 

[luckysob]

This past Saturday, my wife spent 3 hours at the local Apple store, and the Genius replaced her phone. It was a quick, on the spot decision to replace the handset. No problems or GPS issues with the replacement iPhone7.

 

[TroyBoy30]

i just used my att 7 plus daily for 12 days while at the beach with zero issues

 

[Kbh159]

This past Saturday, my wife spent 3 hours at the local Apple store, and the Genius replaced her phone. It was a quick, on the spot decision to replace the handset. No problems or GPS issues with the replacement iPhone7.

Well for me, the gps on the replacement phone worked fine just for a couple of days then the same symptom occurred again then got worse actually.

 

[kenhagemann]

i just used my att 7 plus daily for 12 days while at the beach with zero issues

Same here. Since jumping to AT&T with my VZ phone no issues.

 

[Markarian421]

It seems like both the AT&T/T-Mobile and the Verizon/Sprint versions of the phone are having GPS problems, if slightly different ones. And I believe those two have different GPS chips (since that's generally part of the cell radio chip). That makes me think it's a software issue. (That and several people here have reported replacing their phone didn't resolve the problems.)

On my AT&T phone I haven't seen these local position errors (track log location problems) but I haven't been watching that closely, I'll try and see what happens. The main issue I had (location thousands of miles off when I had no cell coverage for hours at a time in remote parts of Utah) is kind of hard to test now that I'm back home.

 

[PPSH-41]

I didn't notice an issue (mainly use Waze) until after reading this thread. :/ On the way home from work, Waze had me about a quarter mile away and it took about 2 minutes of re-positioning before it finally had me on the correct road.

 

[luckysob]

Well for me, the gps on the replacement phone worked fine just for a couple of days then the same symptom occurred again then got worse actually.

I'll be checking her phone daily (usually through find my iPhone) to see if the current performance degrades. Thanks for your data point. I was hoping that maybe it was a specific lot of parts, but maybe it could be a systemic random design or manufacturing issue.

 

[kenhagemann]

It seems like both the AT&T/T-Mobile and the Verizon/Sprint versions of the phone are having GPS problems, if slightly different ones. And I believe those two have different GPS chips (since that's generally part of the cell radio chip). That makes me think it's a software issue. (That and several people here have reported replacing their phone didn't resolve the problems.)

On my AT&T phone I haven't seen these local position errors (track log location problems) but I haven't been watching that closely, I'll try and see what happens. The main issue I had (location thousands of miles off when I had no cell coverage for hours at a time in remote parts of Utah) is kind of hard to test now that I'm back home.

I am on AT&T and ported my VZ phone and have no issues with GPS. I do when I put the VZ sim back in .

 

[Cat Dancer]

Right out of the box on 9/17, my iPhone 7 Plus I noticed the Compass was off and varied from 15° to 60° to the West. This was consistent whether I was on WiFi or via LTE. I expected it to correct and reset, which it did not. I did notice Waze and Maps behave a bit odd too, but usually it was not in the order of such a large variance.

After a week, I called Apple CS and spent about an hour on the phone with the guy trying to resolve the issue. He had had me go through many settings and rebooting cycles. Eventually, he scheduled me for a Genius Bar visit. He wasn't sure if it would be a replacement or in house repair.

3 days later on the morning of the appointment, I checked and it was working correctly so I cancelled the appointment.

Over the years of using TomTom and a few other stand alone portable GPS units, I'd notice odd variances that usually corrected in a day or 2. This did not happen with the iPhone 7 Plus.

I'm not sure if my experience is related to the OP's topic question, but it did sound similar to my experience.

 

[gazonk]

Chiming in here with similar problems: My runs of Strava are suddenly 5% longer (using iSmothRun for the run) than they used to be with my iPhone 6. The gps track isn't really off, but it's so "jagged" that the total length gets much too long.

Also, I can confirm that I have problems with BT connection to my car. Maybe in half the cases or more, my car doesn't find the iPhone 7 on first attempt and gives up and tries to find my wife's phone instead. Never happened with iPhone 6.

 

[janeauburn]

This happened to me yesterday with waze and iphone 6+

Could be a waze issue.

 

[CreativeC]

I am about to buy an iPhone 7+ and I live in Ireland. Has this problem been solved on newer iOS versions? Considering I depend heavily on the GPS of my phone, spending 1100+ € for a phone and having the GPS not working is not acceptable.

 

[janeauburn]

I am about to buy an iPhone 7+ and I live in Ireland. Has this problem been solved on newer iOS versions? Considering I depend heavily on the GPS of my phone, spending 1100+ € for a phone and having the GPS not working is not acceptable.

It's best to wait a few months until Apple irons out all of the kinks in this phone. This isn't the only one. Call quality is also crap.

 

[Sandrat954]

For all of us iPhone 7 users, Apple has released iOS 10.0.3 that has fixed my GPS issue! I'm an Uber driver and would see the issue a little more than others before my update. But after this update, my GPS is working smoothly on all of my trips. I did 9 trips yesterday and some were long with no GPS issues at all! I believe the update is only for iPhone 7 users though, but don't quote me on that lol

 

[msb3079]

I am running 10.0.3 now and still have major GPS issues when running/climbing. Distances are way off still. So frustrating that something that worked just fine on iPhones for years and years could suddenly be so terrible.

 

[Sandrat954]

I am running 10.0.3 now and still have major GPS issues when running/climbing. Distances are way off still. So frustrating that something that worked just fine on iPhones for years and years could suddenly be so terrible.

What phone do you have? iPhone 7 or 7 Plus? I have the 7 and the update fixed my issue. I use GPS all day long as an Uber driver and before this update I had GPS issues, but now it's gone.

 

[msb3079]

What phone do you have? iPhone 7 or 7 Plus? I have the 7 and the update fixed my issue. I use GPS all day long as an Uber driver and before this update I had GPS issues, but now it's gone.

I have the 7. But might be a little different with running. If it keeps going off by a little bit on the road driving.. it might still be ok. But running through the woods, this little tiny "offs" add up to a mile or more of extra "distance".

10.1 was just released. Hopefully that helps!

 

[Douganator]

I have just completed my normal Tuesday mountain run and the issue is not fixed in iOS 10.1
I am starting to think this is a hardware issue.
I still have my iPhone 6S so I will start doing some side by side comparisons with the iPhone 7.
As posted above, this really feels like a backwards step. After years of the GPS working really good we are now stuck with a device that is substandard.