My iPhone Thinks I’m in Minnesota
Michael Moncur has been having trouble with the GPS feature on his brand new 3G iPhone. Compared to his old iPhone, the maps feature isn’t nearly as useful.
Despite not having a GPS chip, [my old] iPhone would do an admirable job of finding my current location using cellphone towers, WiFi, and some sort of dark magic.
Although this was good, I was really looking forward to using the maps on the new iPhone 3G with true GPS. I brought a new 3G iPhone home last week, gleefully clicked on the Maps and “locate me†buttons, and instantly found myself on a map centered on Wayzata, Minnesota. I’m sure it’s a fine place, but unfortunately, I’m 1300 miles away in Utah.
I have had the exact same problem with my iPhone and I’m surprised that there is nothing in the Apple support pages about it. I guess that’s the price I pay for being an early adopter, but honestly, all those cool iPhone apps that use my location are USELESS when the phone thinks I’m in another state.
Update 09-01-08: After playing with it for two weeks, I’ve decided that Mike was right. It IS the 3G tower interfering with the GPS signal. When I turn 3G off, the iPhone can find EXACTLY where I am within a few seconds. All iPhone apps that use my location (like RunKeeper) use the correct location when I turn off 3G.