Thinking...... still thinking...... still thinking....... oh this hurts..... ok. done!
I didn't buy my iphone to use as a gps and neither did you (unless you purchased it since Tueday). And if you did buy it to be a gps you misread the product literature because apple doesn't advertise it as a gps. Any gps like functionality is a bonus. When I want true gps accuracy I use an actual gps, and so should you. If your iphone drops a call, then you have something to complain about.
I already have a GPS, thanks. I'd rather not have to carry around two devices with me all the time. Isn't that the reason the thing has an iPod built into it too? It would be nice to have a reasonably close guess that Goggle states in their own information but isn't even remotely close. Why even bother advertising the functionality if it doesn't work. Using your logic I hope your car never breaks down because, according to Goggle, a riding lawnmower would be an acceptable substitution.
That being said, I checked it VERY heavily today on a 180+ mile trip and I can reaffirm, without a doubt, that the new 'find me' aspect is completely useless. This driving covered rural areas, a city of 100,000 and the Cleveland, OH area. The distance errors were confirmed with a real GPS. I used the function frequently and took more than 50 samples.
First of all, only twice did the locater actually locate a position correctly. I was well outside of the range ring. On average I was at least three to five miles from the center of the range rings.
On Interstate highway travel I generally found the location it was displaying to be behind where I was actually located. Thanks for letting me know where I've already been.
On one of the occasions when it didn't report me as following myself, at the final exit inside Pennsylvania on I-90, the location was reported to be one mile north of the next exit in Ohio, an 8 mile error.
On one occasion approximately half way to Cleveland I had a stop to make off the Interstate. At one point while traveling I was roughly being reported correctly until, at one point, the app decided I was back on the Interstate one exit 10 miles back.
The worst error occurred when I was traveling on US Rt 6 and it had been giving me a roughly general location (+/- 5 miles) when suddenly it decided I was in a town 18 miles to the east. The town I came from was the only other time where it accurately showed my position. By accurate I mean that it showed me centered on a circle that was 1.5 miles wide.
The claims that large population centers make a difference are grossly exaggerated. When I was in Erie, PA the range ring diameter covered an area of 35 city blocks and I was never in a location where the range ring said I was. That is completely unusable.
When in the Cleveland area it never showed me accurately at any location. My physical location was never within the range ring at any point and the range ring ranged from 1.5 - 3 miles wide.
I repeatedly attempted to use the routing feature and got the notification that it couldn't create a route. Well, no kidding. With an error level that bad how could it. On my second actual located position I got it to route. I attempted the locater along the way and it would frequently yank the position away from the shown route and display me miles away from where I was actually on the route. Obviously routing and using this to locate myself on the route is useless.
I also discovered that with approximately 8-10 locater uses the application fails to locate any longer. I had to force the application closed and then it would locate once again on the next run.
Goggle claims an average accuracy of 1000m. A kind estimate of average error was more than 5000m and frequently more like 8000m. On only those two out of 50+ location attempts did it actually fall within their estimate in 180+ miles. Any other time I wasn't even located anywhere within its range ring estimate. Nearly all samples were taken when the signal scale was being reported as near full or full scale.
So, no this isn't even remotely ready for public use. It obviously has serious issues and is completely unreliable.
