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2nd short hop here in Greeneville (about 11 - 12 minutes). Globe turned red for about 5 seconds within the last hundred yards or so of my destination and then again right as I was pulling into a parking space. I don't want to throw in the towel just yet, but had a similar behavior right after I'd done that network reset a week or so ago.
Well, I've still got about an 80 mile ride back to the house after this job, so...
Got home about two hours ago. During my 78 mile trip home I had an instance of GPS losing signal about 20 minutes into the trip that lasted just long enough for the verbal notification in MotionX to announce it. Still not sure exactly how long it has to be off before MotionX does that. I had relaxed my death-stare on the globe because it seemed to be working so well, so I didn't see it right when it turned red that time.
I saw the globe go red for about 10 seconds approximately 15 minutes later and then once more about ten minutes or so before I got home.
I called Eric at Apple to try to get an early update (he'd told me it would be tomorrow or Wednesday when he'd call back). More importantly, though, I wanted to fill him in on today's findings so he could pass that on to the engineers. Got his voicemail, so we'll see what tomorrow brings.
Interesting. I have been playing with Waze, and it just doesn't hold gps very well. Motion x drive holds much better.
I've made two runs so far today, 20 minutes using Waze and 30 minutes with MotionX Drive with no drops in GPS signal. This looks like the end of the issue for me.
What is different that may have solved your situation?
As an aside, I navigated with Waze today, and no loss of signal for some reason.
Try this, if you haven't already:
Go to Settings> General> Reset> and select the button to reset your network settings. A short while after I did that, I got a notification sent to my phone from Verizon that my network settings needed to be reconfigured. Then dial *228, select option 2 to update your data roaming capabilities.
Given everything I've tried so far, I believe it was doing those things, in that specific order, that worked for me.
Oh, and if you've logged into any secured wifi networks, you'll need to re-enter the password next time you connect after doing that network reset.
I'm really curious to know if that works for anybody else.
Simple enough to try. I will give it a try.
OK, gave it a try. No problem with the reset. Drove home using Waze. Perfect. No loss of signal. And, it was raining, too. Only a 20 minute drive, but yesterday it would not hold well at all.
The drive in to work this morning went without a hitch. Had to make a stop along the way that was far enough off route to force MotionX to re-route several times forcing data use to get updated directions and the GPS signal never faltered.
Oh, and dndrich, I'm glad to hear that yours seems to be doing better, too. I hope that this whole problem was something as simple as that.
I gotta tell ya, this has been frustrating for me. I had been pretty satisfied with my Android phone and took a pretty big plunge into my wallet to get this one. I've read a lot of posts here and on other threads and it seems like a lot of you have multiple phones, plans, devices, etc. to play around with and fall back on if one doesn't work. I don't. This iPhone is all I have, so I was really irritated that it wasn't working at least as well as my old phone did.
Interesting, motionX drive and Waze both had updates this morning. Neither mentioned anything related to our problems in their changelogs, though. I have about a 45 minute drive right now to see if the "new and improved" versions are going to do anything noticeably different.
For what it's worth - Telenav launched a new iPhone4 app yesterday(?)... App is free with a 30 day free trial, then $2.99 a month or $21.99 a year for navigation... or use maps & search free after trial period. I'm trying it...
I loved Telenav on my old Nextel phone. First GPS of any type I've ever used. Thanks for the tip. I'm going to try it.
I saw this too... I'm wondering if the vague "Bug Fixes" in the Waze change log might have a fix for the ViPhone gps issue.
I didn't close out any apps, and didn't turn off network either. I turned on TomTom as soon as I left work last night. I didn't navigate, but it tracked me all the way home and never glitched. I had went it 2 days ago and reset my network settings and did the *228 and who knows, maybe that fixed it.
How is this trick working for everyone so far? I'm having moderate results. Some days it works perfectly and other days I have horrible gps signal.
Hey TinLemon, so far, so good for me. Waze is still a little more finicky and I notice the signal drop out every so often with it, but not quite as frequently as before. I think I'm settling on MotionX Drive as my navigator of choice, anyway. It has only had a few (very few) drop-outs and that has been in situations that were acceptable (bad weather, urban-shadowing, roads with a lot of tree canopy, etc). The GPS receiver in the iPhone seems to be a bit weak, compared to past devices, in that regard. All in all, I'm pretty pleased with it now. I just hope it doesn't revert. I was about ready to toss it out the window, before.
Waze is what is causing me the most trouble too, so I'm glad it's not just me. I had a great 6 hr drive over the weekend using Navigon with almost no dropped signal, but then this morning I lost signal a few times with Waze, which is why I wanted to see what everyone elses experience has been.
I'm having the same problems as you guys. But I've been using Navigon. I'll have a great GPS signal, then it'll drop in odd places it shouldn't. Like driving through farmland, totally flat as far as the eye can see. The iPhone is kept on my windshield with about the clearest view of the sky possible. I have all the updates available. I even had the Apple Store restore my phone using their special "firmware restore". No dice.
Navigon will even convulse when the car is standing still. You'll see the arrow point in the direction you are going, then it'll turn sideways. Then it'll point forward again. Then it'll show up about 50 feet to the right of your actual position.
The odd thing is I had an AT&T iPhone before this Verizon iPhone and Navigon was ROCK SOLID.
I used a third-party app to test my GPS signal. It'd have a lock of "Very Good", then about a minute or two later, it'll loose lock and most of the information will change to "Invalid" until about 15 to 20 seconds later when it will lock on again.
This HAS to be either an OS or hardware issue. I just think that some GPS apps are better at hiding the iphone's demented ramblings until it comes back to it's senses.
Yep. Love my verizon iphone, but I agree, it is probably hardware. I hope I'm wrong, and a firmware upgrade will help it...
Anyone have an update to this issue. I have nothing to add, but wondering if anyone has any success with this chronic issue?
hmmm no wonder i've had a few iphone users ask directions from me (i use htc incredible). i never knew iphone gps was unreliable. i use navigation quite a bit so an unreliable gps will probably make me wait before getting an iphone.
Ever since I did the PRL after doing a network reset in the phone settings, I've not had any issues. Waze still flakes out, occasionally, and the GPS reception doesn't seem as strong overall as other phones and devices I've used, but it's working for me, now. And, yes, I do think that the GPS in the HTC Android phones was way more robust than the iPhone.
Let me clarify that Waze isn't the only nav app I'm using. The others work fine with a very infrequent and short drop in signal.
I just updated my phone to 4.2.7 hoping maybe there was an unmentioned update to the baseband or GPS. Unfortunately, MotionX seems to be as bad or worse than ever. I get the red globe every few minutes and in the same locations as before, with perhaps a few more added in. Maybe nothing changed and it's coincidence, but it certainly isn't better.
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