Apple | GPS Obsessed

If you’re still having problems with GPS location issues on your new 3G Apple iPhone, an iPhoneAtlas has discovered an astute reader from Apple’s own discussion forums has figured out that turning off the 3G connectivity can actually fix the problem in many cases. So if you’re in California and a location fix finds you in New York, try this fix:

Navigate to Settings>General>Network>Enable 3G and toggle to “OFF”
Locate yourself using the iPhone 3G’s GPS receiver
Navigate to Settings>General>Network>Enable 3G and toggle to “ON”

Those who’ve tried it seem to find that it works, and even better is the fact that if you turn the 3G back on after running the fix, accurate GPS results tend to persist in most cases.

iphoneatlas via intomobile

More »

Sphere: Related Content

3giphone

Apple’s 3G iPhone has been torndown, taken apart, and analyzed deeper than Freud could have ever analyzed your mind. But how much does all that hardware actually cost Apple? Last month iSuppli pinned the cost at an estimated $173, 23% less than the cost to make a first-generation 8GB model. They were damn close. BusinessWeek reports that the actual cost to make an 8GB 3G iPhone is $174.33, way less than the $227 it took to make a first-gen model. That’s a per-unit gross profit of 55%, even accounting for AT&T’s subsidy in the United States. Check out the official press release after the jump.

[Read more →]

More »

Sphere: Related Content

iPhone GPS1 Not everyone is particularly happy with the 3G iPhone’s GPS capabilities. Powered by an Infineon Hammerhead II chip, the 3G iPhone’s GPS capabilities falls short in a couple of key areas. Number one, Apple’s new mobile phone doesn’t feature realt time turn-by-turn navigation and number two, it can’t reroute on the fly. If you happen to miss a turn, the iPhone will still locate your current position with its GPS beacon, but the route mapped originally as you started your trip will remain the same.

The folks over at autoblog decided to put the new iPhone’s GPS to the test driving from East Bay to San Francisco, a trip that runs through several different types of environments typically challenging to GPS reception. Upon leaving East Bay, the reviewers punched in their destination and the iPhone quickly popped a pin onto the Google Maps interface right where it was supposed to be. The phone was also able to quickly get a GPS lock on their current position. The Google Map interface does offer turn-by-turn directions, not in real-time, but using the features requires a lot of moving around the screen to your next waypoint. Not so easy when driving. The reviewers also quickly found that there isn’t much of a link between the GPS beacon and the listed directions. Your location doesn’t tend to update until your at a waypoint, so if you really aren’t sure of your whereabouts, you’ll constantly have to get the iPhone to update your current location so you don’t miss any turns.

Moving into San Fran, the reviewers hit a deadspot and momentarily lost the map. The GPS beacon remained as did the original route, but once the through the deadspot they had already missed a turn. Unfortunately because there is no rerouting, it was up to them to find the way back to the originally mapped route. In the end the reviewers felt that the iPhone’s GPS capabilities were no match for dedicated sat-nav’s, but would make a half decent device for those on foot.

So why all the hoopla about the 3G iPhone’s GPS pre-release from Apple, only to launch an under-delivering product? New York Time’s tech head David Pogue says that the GPS antenna used by the iPhone is just too small to emulate real-time navigation. But Apple product manager Greg Joswiak says that’s just not so. He says the GPS in the 3G iPhone is just as capable as that in other mobile devices that do provide real-time navigation. But he conceded that there are some “complicated issues” preventing real-time driving apps at the moment. Fair enough, but what “complicated issues” could prevent Apple themselves from integrating it into the phone’s software? We may never know, but he added that “it will evolve” making us think real-time navigation will come to the 3G iPhone sometime in the not-too-distant future. Maybe in partnership with TeleNav?

Category — Apple

A Simple Fix For Your 3G iPhone GPS Problems

How Much Does The iPhone Actually Cost To Make?

3G iPhone’s GPS Gets Reviewed, Wishes It Didn’t