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.