This is a rant, although I seem to be in fairly good company around other parts of the internet. And for the curious: yes, I have engaged Apple technical support, and that's part of the disappointment.
I usually upgrade once every three or so years, but went earlier this year as I was excited about the dedicated photo button on the iPhone 16 Pro line. (I do use it, but I don't think it was worth the tradeoffs.) My iPhone 14 Pro was fantastic, and up until that phone, each upgrade had truly felt like an upgrade. The issue with the 16 Pro isn't that it didn't feel like an upgrade, but that performance got worse in many ways.
The cellular signal was the first thing I noticed. I don't get great cellular reception at my house, and Apple Music doesn't usually kick in until I've driven a little bit down my street. With the 16 Pro I noticed that I had to drive farther. I almost never see full cellular reception bars, although I don't make too much of that; the actual performance is what matters.
There were some other car-related oddities. I use the iPhone as a "phone as a key" with my vehicle, and with the 16 Pro suddenly the car was no longer regularly detecting it. Sometimes it would begin adjusting the mirrors and seat for my wife's profile, a car glitch that had seemingly been resolved a year earlier and that had been rock-solid with the iPhone 14 Pro. I also use CarPlay, and the 16 Pro seems to start in a "paused" state more often than not, and frequently cycles to the next song whenever I get back into the car, no matter whether I did anything or not. These could just be software-related issues, but I was not having an issue with iOS 18 on my 14 Pro, and I've been upgrading iPhones since the original iPhone and carrying my data forward - maybe it's finally time to wipe everything and start clean, but I'm not so sure.
But the GPS is the most egregious of the issues, and the one that made me go to Apple for help. I use Apple Maps on CarPlay regularly, and I have never seen behavior like this. Suddenly my cursor will shift over multiple streets, and sometimes over the ocean or over mountains (I live in Hawaii, so this isn't exactly a huge shift - but goes to show that the phone is badly misinterpreting location data). After a few seconds to a minute it'll usually shift back to where I am, but behaves as if I'm not in a car, because the cursor will be at the side of the road, and moves across roads. There was one time that the icon began to point one way on the street and then the other, every two or three seconds, even though I was actively driving down the road. Of course, when these things happen then rerouting occurs like mad (once it froze and I missed my exit). It doesn't happen every single moment that I am driving, but it seems to happen anywhere from every other drive to every single drive (judging from using the main screen that shows multiple things at once, including a small map, which guesses where you're going and shows a suggested route - that used to show accurately for the entire drive, but now it disappears at some point in the drive because the phone perceives that my location has shifted so dramatically that the phone guesses I am going somewhere else). It has made the GPS incredibly unreliable, and trips to unknown locations a lot more stressful because I can't count on it like I used to.
It's been a long, long time since I've had to use the Genius Bar service. Apple has made it difficult, if not impossible, to schedule an appointment with them. I used their virtual technical support, which was reportedly able to run some sort of hardware diagnostic test remotely and told me that there were no issues with my antennas or other navigation hardware. They suggested that I reset my location privacy data. I did so, which led to nearly every program asking for permission all over again, but was no help.
Fed up, I went in person to my local Apple Store and waited close to an hour for a Genius to assist me. They suggested that the fact that I had a VPN profile configured (but inactive - and something I've also had for ages) could be causing the problems, and that maybe I should delete it and see what happens. For those of you who don't know, this is a pretty ridiculous suggestion on the face of it, and I voiced my skepticism as politely as possible. The Genius took my phone to the back to run some tests. When he returned, he noted that the phone had again passed all of Apple's hardware tests. While in the back, he reportedly spoke with a technician about the issue. The technician said that both he and his wife had the same issue with their iPhone 16 Pros, and suggested that it was a software issue that they were waiting on Apple to fix.
What I had really wanted, of course, was a complete phone swap, as that's the only fix that I've read. But what can I do if they're saying that their hardware tests are fine, and even the technician is suggesting that it's a software problem? I don't think it's totally unrealistic to suggest that it's a software issue, but it's hard to believe that two major point releases would have gone by and this issue would not yet be resolved. Additionally, it's not like every single iPhone 16 Pro user is having this problem. My wife's phone doesn't seem to have this issue, and while there are similar stories as mine floating around the internet, it's not like there's a universal uproar over this. It isn't a "GPSGate" scenario. Given how much I use GPS, however, it almost feels like I'll be forced to upgrade to the iPhone 17 to have a shot at getting this issue resolved.
I'll probably go back to the Apple Store about it again - maybe after I've completely wiped my phone and set it up fresh, just to knock out that variable - but the experience has been a sour one.
I don't really expect anything from this post... mostly, I'm just venting. Thanks for reading.
I usually upgrade once every three or so years, but went earlier this year as I was excited about the dedicated photo button on the iPhone 16 Pro line. (I do use it, but I don't think it was worth the tradeoffs.) My iPhone 14 Pro was fantastic, and up until that phone, each upgrade had truly felt like an upgrade. The issue with the 16 Pro isn't that it didn't feel like an upgrade, but that performance got worse in many ways.
The cellular signal was the first thing I noticed. I don't get great cellular reception at my house, and Apple Music doesn't usually kick in until I've driven a little bit down my street. With the 16 Pro I noticed that I had to drive farther. I almost never see full cellular reception bars, although I don't make too much of that; the actual performance is what matters.
There were some other car-related oddities. I use the iPhone as a "phone as a key" with my vehicle, and with the 16 Pro suddenly the car was no longer regularly detecting it. Sometimes it would begin adjusting the mirrors and seat for my wife's profile, a car glitch that had seemingly been resolved a year earlier and that had been rock-solid with the iPhone 14 Pro. I also use CarPlay, and the 16 Pro seems to start in a "paused" state more often than not, and frequently cycles to the next song whenever I get back into the car, no matter whether I did anything or not. These could just be software-related issues, but I was not having an issue with iOS 18 on my 14 Pro, and I've been upgrading iPhones since the original iPhone and carrying my data forward - maybe it's finally time to wipe everything and start clean, but I'm not so sure.
But the GPS is the most egregious of the issues, and the one that made me go to Apple for help. I use Apple Maps on CarPlay regularly, and I have never seen behavior like this. Suddenly my cursor will shift over multiple streets, and sometimes over the ocean or over mountains (I live in Hawaii, so this isn't exactly a huge shift - but goes to show that the phone is badly misinterpreting location data). After a few seconds to a minute it'll usually shift back to where I am, but behaves as if I'm not in a car, because the cursor will be at the side of the road, and moves across roads. There was one time that the icon began to point one way on the street and then the other, every two or three seconds, even though I was actively driving down the road. Of course, when these things happen then rerouting occurs like mad (once it froze and I missed my exit). It doesn't happen every single moment that I am driving, but it seems to happen anywhere from every other drive to every single drive (judging from using the main screen that shows multiple things at once, including a small map, which guesses where you're going and shows a suggested route - that used to show accurately for the entire drive, but now it disappears at some point in the drive because the phone perceives that my location has shifted so dramatically that the phone guesses I am going somewhere else). It has made the GPS incredibly unreliable, and trips to unknown locations a lot more stressful because I can't count on it like I used to.
It's been a long, long time since I've had to use the Genius Bar service. Apple has made it difficult, if not impossible, to schedule an appointment with them. I used their virtual technical support, which was reportedly able to run some sort of hardware diagnostic test remotely and told me that there were no issues with my antennas or other navigation hardware. They suggested that I reset my location privacy data. I did so, which led to nearly every program asking for permission all over again, but was no help.
Fed up, I went in person to my local Apple Store and waited close to an hour for a Genius to assist me. They suggested that the fact that I had a VPN profile configured (but inactive - and something I've also had for ages) could be causing the problems, and that maybe I should delete it and see what happens. For those of you who don't know, this is a pretty ridiculous suggestion on the face of it, and I voiced my skepticism as politely as possible. The Genius took my phone to the back to run some tests. When he returned, he noted that the phone had again passed all of Apple's hardware tests. While in the back, he reportedly spoke with a technician about the issue. The technician said that both he and his wife had the same issue with their iPhone 16 Pros, and suggested that it was a software issue that they were waiting on Apple to fix.
What I had really wanted, of course, was a complete phone swap, as that's the only fix that I've read. But what can I do if they're saying that their hardware tests are fine, and even the technician is suggesting that it's a software problem? I don't think it's totally unrealistic to suggest that it's a software issue, but it's hard to believe that two major point releases would have gone by and this issue would not yet be resolved. Additionally, it's not like every single iPhone 16 Pro user is having this problem. My wife's phone doesn't seem to have this issue, and while there are similar stories as mine floating around the internet, it's not like there's a universal uproar over this. It isn't a "GPSGate" scenario. Given how much I use GPS, however, it almost feels like I'll be forced to upgrade to the iPhone 17 to have a shot at getting this issue resolved.
I'll probably go back to the Apple Store about it again - maybe after I've completely wiped my phone and set it up fresh, just to knock out that variable - but the experience has been a sour one.
I don't really expect anything from this post... mostly, I'm just venting. Thanks for reading.
