"Locate me" button in Maps keeps spinning, but doesn't do much else

[echeats]

I got my iPhone 3G yesterday, have been playing and everything is great, i do however have one problem. People have posted about this on Apple support etc but nobody seems to have a solution.

Basically, when pressing the "Locate me" button in Maps it turns to a small spinning circle and stays that way, nothing else happens. So far i have left it for up to 10 minutes, tried it in various locations using Wifi, 3G and Edge and tried rebooting via holding the sleep/wake button and the home button all with no luck.

Does anyone else have this problem or know of a solution?

Thanks.

 

[viggen61]

I got my iPhone 3G yesterday, have been playing and everything is great, i do however have one problem. People have posted about this on Apple support etc but nobody seems to have a solution.

Basically, when pressing the "Locate me" button in Maps it turns to a small spinning circle and stays that way, nothing else happens. So far i have left it for up to 10 minutes, tried it in various locations using Wifi, 3G and Edge and tried rebooting via holding the sleep/wake button and the home button all with no luck.

Does anyone else have this problem or know of a solution?

Thanks.

There's three important things about getting your iPhone's GPS to work:

Location, location, location.

I just got my iPhone yesterday. In my apartment (which has two good windows...), no location available. This morning, while waiting for my Van pool to arrive, I set it on the dash of my car for maybe 15 seconds, and it got a lock, and Maps dropped the pin exactly where I was.

You need a broad view of the sky to get an initial lock via the GPS. And for cell tower triangulation to work, you need to be able to see 3 or more cell towers, AND they have to be in mostly different directions.

GPS signals are very weak, and for a good lock, the iPhone needs at least three, preferrably 5 satellites to be in view, and again, they need to be in different directions from you.

If you live in a city, this could be a problem. Find a nice park that has a broad sky view all around, switch the phone on, select maps, hit locate, and wait a bit. Don't fidget with the phone, trying other things. It will lock in.

One thing that should help is that after you get that initial lock, future locks should be easier, since the iPhone already has an idea of the general vicinity of where it is.

Also, I would shut off WiFi, and just let the iPhone use the A-GPS that's built in.

 

[Snips]

Disappointingly, lots of things regressed with the 2.0 firmware. My 1st ten iPhone did a great job of finding location using celltower triangulation and/or wifi (via Skyhook). Now I usually get the symptom you see. Works better in downtown London where there are plenty of mapped hotspots, but overall a bad regression.

I'm disappointed that Apple/Google let it out like this, and hope they fix it.

 

[ksmith80209]

There's another consideration too - network and wi-fi. Right after I got the 3G, I was traveling with the phone on 3G, Wif-fi off (to save battery) and location service on. In the middle of St Louis, it couldn't find me - the spinner kept spinning. On a hunch, I switched wifi on and 3G off (forcing to EDGE) and it found me right away. Apparently the relative sparsity of 3G towers caused problems locating me - a problem resolved by adding wifi and EDGE into the mix...

 

[scottnorville]

iphone nav, got it working at long last!!!!!!!!!

ok, as per previous threads, I have managed to get the maps to work and pin point to exactly where I am via wi-fi gps etc!

I have looked at various sites, and no-one really knows what's going on and just blaming everything on the new upgrade 2.1.

This is wrong.

The iphone just needs a little 'kick start' in finding the location on where you are, after this process (please see below) it will work fine as it has with mine and my girlfriends iphone.

1) Turn off iphone by the home button and the screen off switch (located on the top) keep both pressed until the phone turns off by itself.

2) Restart the phone OUTSIDE, and leave OUTSIDE for 10 minutes.

3) Turn the phone back on and go into maps.

4) DONT HIT LOCATE ME BUTTON, but manually enter postcode/zipcode in the area you are at.

5) The pin will drop into the position you have entered.

6) Now this is where it works, press the locate button the the bottom left, this will take about 30 seconds max to find you.

You will now see the blue dot on the exact location you are standing in.

THIS WILL NOT WORK INDOORS ONLY OUTSIDE.

I hope this helps.

Scott