Verizon iPhone GPS issues

Oh yeah, I made reference to this forum and sent him a link to this thread. He said it would be helpful to see what kind of issues others are having. When I first found this site by Googling "verizon iphone gps issues" I remember seeing some other threads pertaining to this same problem, but I kind of locked in on this particular thread and haven't been looking at any of the others, lately. Have any of you been keeping up with those? I'm going to do another search to see what I can find, but if any of you can link to anything else that may be helpful, it may go a long way in finding a solution.

Originally Posted by Icyhot1966

If I may ask, what other phone did you give up?

It was an HTC Eris.

Yes, all of the Droids have wonderful GPS. So does the AT&T iPhone, which I am SERIOUSLY considering getting because of this issue.

There is some more complaints in this thread.

Verizon Iphone - The Good, The Bad, The Ugly - MacRumors Forums

I did get a pretty generous trade-in value from Verizon for it, but that aside, the iPhone's cost was $299, and even with what they gave me as a trade-in, that's quite a bit of money to pay to go backwards in regards to the GPS. I love nearly everything else about the phone. I was already very familiar with the OS, having had an iPod Touch since Jan '08. I was still taking that to work with me every day to listen to my music because none of the music player apps on the Android phone could compare in my opinion. It seemed like a no-brainer to have all my gadgets in one device.

The phone provided by my employer is through AT&T (not an iPhone, though). I've been working there for four years, during which time I've had Verizon as my personal phone carrier. All I can say is, as badly as I've been wanting an iPhone, the daily side-by-side comparison between the two that I've experienced first-hand is what kept me from switching over.

Have you thought about taking your phone either to an Apple or Verizon store and have them swap it out until you get a good one??

I did that already. I took it in the first time and they wiped it clean and did a fresh restore of the OS at my suggestion to see if maybe it had somehow gotten corrupted during the initial loading process at the factory. My analogy was burning a bad CD or DVD because the screensaver kicks in or your virus scanner starts a scan during the burn and interrupts it for a nanosecond. You end up with a disc full of data and many times some or most of it is accessible, but parts of it just won't work. I just assumed that maybe something on the assembly line had a hiccup while my phone was getting the OS flashed to it.

This was several days prior to me finding this forum or any other indication that anyone else was having the same problem, and believe me, I had been searching every day. So, I just assumed mine was a unique, isolated problem. That didn't work and as luck would have it, I had a job in the mall where the Apple store is. Took it in, spur of the moment, during my lunch break. I explained the problem again and they swapped the phone.

I loaded MotionX (and nothing else) on it while I was still in their store and before I did anything else with it, including phone calls or text messages, I tested MotionX and it did the same thing. That was when I realized that others HAD to be having this problem, too. It was probably a few days later that I happened to notice that the GPS worked uninterrupted in a remote area with no cell signal and then a few days later I finally got some hits through Google, this thread being one of them.

If you work that close to an Apple store, I believe I would continue to swap it out. Obviously there are some good phones out there. Maybe it can be traced to a bad batch, perhaps by ESN number.

Yeah, could be. I hadn't thought of that. Problem is, none of the store employees have seemed to be able to fully grasp the problem as I have explained it to them. Firstly, each one I've dealt with have admitted to me that they never use their phones for GPS. I have found that it helps so much to talk to someone who has actual experience with the subject when it's a technical matter such as this. One of the first things each one of them has asked me was if I had good 3G signal whenever/wherever the problem occurs because they said the phone has to have it for the GPS to function. I told them that that totally negates one of the selling points of the "cached" navigators like TomTom and Navigon so it can be used in remote areas with no cell signal. They couldn't explain that to me.

The other thing is that I initially thought I'd go in there, present this problem, and one of the cool, hip-looking youngsters that you see in there would go in the back and get a guy sporting a pocket protector and a slide-rule who would come out and start analyzing the phone, pulling error logs off it and such. The "Genius" moniker made me think I'd walk in there with a broken phone and walk out with a fixed one. I don't mean to slight them in the least. They bend over backwards to help you as much as they can, but until I spoke with Eric last night, I hadn't talked to any Apple reps who seemed to have any true technical knowledge of how the phone actually does what it does.

I'm going to wait for his follow-up call and see where we stand, then I may pursue the phone-a-day swap until I get one that works. I personally think that they all have the same issue but it just doesn't always occur. Like when I did the data network reset on mine the other day and made a 75 mile trip with no snags. I just knew that took care of the problem. Then the very next leg of my trip it started dropping out and little by little it got back to the same old routine. Why did I get well over an hour of good use after doing that and then it fails on the next trip, all other conditions being the same? Who knows. I think that some people are having good luck with theirs, for now, but the conditions will arise where it starts to do the same thing as ours.

I would be curious to see, on a map, where the phones are working and where they're not working. Personally, I'm in Knoxville, TN. My service area is about a 100-150 mile radius around Knoxville. The specific area where I noticed the correlation between the lack of cell service and the GPS working is US27 between Oneida, TN and Somerset, KY.

I know a lot of people enjoy their anonymity, but if you don't mind disclosing at least the general region where you are, it may be beneficial to a solution.

Well maybe you should go in the Apple store and direct them to this thread. Take one of them out for a test drive if need be. I contacted Engadget and linked this thread to them. I want to see this get national recognition if at all possible. As for turning off the Cellular network, I am believing all that does is turn off internet. Calls and texts still come in fine. I thought it was like putting it in Airplane mode, but apparently I was wrong.

Garmin is a good and popular GPS that can be fixed in cars. I do no about GPS in iphones. Verizon is getting the iphone finally. one can check whether it is true or not.

<a href="http://isverizongettingtheiphone.com/">http://Verizon Getting iPhone</a>

I'm going to wait to hear back from Eric. I got the impression, talking to him, that this information is finally in capable hands. However, he did indicate, whenever I mentioned that the native maps app seemed to track fine with data turned on, that the engineers are likely to put the blame back on the third party app developers. I'm still not sure that the maps app IS working 100% of the time, since it more or less requires constant visual confirmation and I haven't tried it yet as a passenger so I could devote all of my attention to it.

If it does turn out that they're right and the native app is always accurate and MotionX, TomTom, etc. need to alter their apps to make them as reliable, then hopefully they (Apple) will dig into the firmware to find what it is that's making these apps not work the same as their native app to get this resolved quicker.

I'm just a little irritated that I paid the same amount of money for my phone that an AT&T customer pays for theirs to end up with less functionality. That's just not right.

Originally Posted by jaisimha

Garmin is a good and popular GPS that can be fixed in cars. I do no about GPS in iphones. Verizon is getting the iphone finally. one can check whether it is true or not.

<a href="http://isverizongettingtheiphone.com/">http://Verizon Getting iPhone</a>

Verizon has the iPhone - has had since mid February.

And yes, Garmin makes great stand-alone GPS units, but their app is lacking. It does not load a full map set to the phone, and there are things Garmin's stand alone units can do their app can't - like make use of customized POI (points of information) lists. If Garmin's app was my Nuvi755 but on my iPhone and/or iPad - I'd be more than pleased. So far, Navigon is quite useable as a GPS app - but just lacks things I'm used to in my Nuvi.

Please keep us advised on what Eric says. But like you, I doubt they will do anything since the stock app works.

Originally Posted by Icyhot1966

If you work that close to an Apple store, I believe I would continue to swap it out. Obviously there are some good phones out there. Maybe it can be traced to a bad batch, perhaps by ESN number.

Oh, I guess the way I worded that, it sounds like I work full-time in the mall where the Apple store is. I don't. I meant to say that I was working on a job in the mall the following day after having taken the phone in for the firmware reset. I can really jumble things up when I'm typing on the iPhone display.

But still, I am pretty close to the Apple store. My work office is about a twenty minute drive from my house and the Apple store is almost dead centered between the two. Pretty handy at times.

If I am going somewhere that I KNOW I will need GPS, I take my Incredible and tether it up to my iPhone. If I were to be somewhere and needed directions and didn't have my Incredible, I would use the built in maps. I have two holders that sit almost eye level in the center of my entire dashboard, so I don't need to hear the directions. Sometimes its nice. But the built in Maps works quite well. Especially if you are lost. Just make sure to turn the back light setting to never or your screen will go black, plus press the little GPS arrow icon in the bottom left after it starts navigating so that it shows something like a little flashlight. That means its using the compass and is pointing you up on the screen as it navigates, like all of the other GPS programs.

I switched my number over to my Palm Pre Plus and turned the hotspot on. Then I tethered my iPhone to it and used MotionX on my way to work. The little globe never turned red nor did I lose GPS reception. There is something coming from the cellular portion of this phone that's causing this.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that on a number of occasions doing my own testing I've forgotten to switch off the wifi when I left the house and it would be on, though not connected to any networks, while I was conducting my cell data off tests and it never caused any issues.

I have concluded that if I turn off cellular data, and close out all apps, TomTom works great. Maybe that is because they update their app for the Verizon iPhone. I have deleted Navigon, Mapquest Mobile and MotionX.

Maybe it's me but since I've updated my PRL, my GPS is performing better.

What is PRL? Oh wait. Never mind I just figured it out. Interesting.

Again, I turned off the Cellular data tonight, and it seemed to work without hiccup (TomTom). I don't really need Cellular data anyway as it seems that is strictly the internet. I can still get calls and texts with the data turned off, and with TomTom the maps are stored locally on my phone. The only downside to that would be you wouldn't have live traffic. Where I live, that isn't an issue. I have other means of checking traffic anyway. So....my theory is that the internet portion of the phone is interfering with the GPS.

Originally Posted by morsecp

What is PRL? Oh wait. Never mind I just figured it out. Interesting.

I had to look that one up, myself. It's the *228 to update your data roaming capabilities thing, right? I never knew that's what it's called, though. I knew about doing that, as I've done it from time on my previous phones and I've done it twice, so far on the iPhone. But, I did it again last night after Icyhot mentioned it. Drove my usual 15 miles into the office this morning and just completed an approximately 90 mile run from Knoxville to Greeneville with a nice blue & green spinning globe in MotionX the whole time.

I used the iPod interface in MotionX to listen to music the whole way. That, in itself doesn't use any cellular data that I know of, but I figured it was a good test of multitasking while navigating. I also did not close out any other background apps. Plus, my fuel light came on in the van, so I had MotionX search for a gas station along my route and added it as a stop, guaranteeing that it was going to have to poll for more data. And then when I got my gas, I entered it into my fuel mileage app which gets a GPS fix to log the gas station location, while MotionX was still on and running in the background, quickly switched back to MotionX to see if the globe had turned red, and all was well.

Of the two times prior that I had done the PRL on the iPhone, once was prior to me getting a replacement phone from Apple and the other was prior to me doing the network reset in the phone settings, so maybe it was the sequence of the network reset and THEN doing the PRL.

OR, maybe I'm getting ahead of myself and it's going to revert back to what it had been doing before on my return trip back to Knoxville.

Fingers are crossed. I'll let you all know.

Just drove to my second of three stops here in Greeneville. About a 10 minute drive. Globe turned red about halfway through for about 5 seconds. Kept GPS signal the rest of the time, otherwise.