after useing the Samsung Galaxy SIII..

[lothar]

actually if you do a search you find people with the same issue (the gps telling weather apps you live in the diffrent areas).

http://androidforums.com/samsung-galaxy-s3/593436-set-city-location.html

http://forums.androidcentral.com/sa...r-using-current-location-reads-incorrect.html

http://forums.androidcentral.com/verizon-galaxy-s-iii/188853-gps-navigation-issues.html



and those are just the ones on that site that i have bookmarked..anyway yeah its not happening

The first 2 links you provided has absolutely nothing to do with GPS.
Most(if not all) weather apps use network based location.
Stop relying on weather apps to tell you where you are.

Where is this massive known problem?
So only one person(the last link you provided) out of the 10-20 million(or however many Samsung has sold so far) has a GPS problem which was fixed by exchanging the unit(you may have to do the same for yours assuming that your complaint is valid)?

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Indeed.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3395846?start=0&tstart=0

You know, one of the most common problems in laptops is wifi not working. Do you really think Dell, Lenovo, HP, etc. ship broken Wifi in their laptops? Or people have bad routers with setups they don't know how to deal with? WPA2 enabled on a laptop but no WPA2 on the laptop? Things like that. It's like PEBKAC and people being nitpicky in general.

I can bet you GPS is another one of the issues on both Android and iOS that will confuse people consistently.

1) GPS sucks indoors. Everyone should know this. GPS reception is never going to be great, and it's likely your GPS receiver in your car or for a standalone Garmin is far better than your phone.

2) Certain manufacturers have more issues with attenuation than others. For example Motorola handsets generally in my experience have better reception. Both GPS and cellular. Samsung devices have had attenuation issues. Look at the SGS1 and SGS2 for example. GPS also isn't stellar on the SGS1. This was further complicated by the US units having GPS software issues. The relatively weak GPS receiver coupled with Samsung's attenuation issues made people think that Samsung phones just suck period when in fact they shouldn't have had such high expectations with cellular GPS to begin with.

3) The SGS3 has improved GPS on the SGS2. I don't really find my SGS2 to be bad. It locks outdoors no problem. THe SGS3 adds GLANOSS capabilities meaning you can easily lock onto like 15-17 satellites outdoors. That's far more than GPS and studies show that combining GPS and GLANOSS improves location accuracy.

Maybe you're just expecting too much out of your GPS.

The one way to determine if your GPS is broken is to sit oudoors for like 3 minutes. If you can't even lock then something may be wrong.

 

[zoiks]

Indeed.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3395846?start=0&tstart=0

Bwahahaha.

 

[ponyo]

Yeah the weather apps don't always use the actual GPS for your location. Many of them will use your network-based location, and if you're on wi-fi it can give you some funky results due to your ISP's location resolving to a NOC that can be several miles away.

If your location shows up properly in Maps, then there isn't a problem.

WiFi can sometimes give you funky network based location even with GPS turned on. For about week or two, even Google Maps would tell me I was in some casino in Las Vegas when I was in Atlanta on my home WiFi. But my GPS and maps worked fine when I was outside on cell signal. But it took a minute to lock back to Atlanta, away from Las Vegas.

I love my phone GPS. Google Navigation saved me many times going from one new job sites to another. It finds places my standalone GPS can't locate.

 

[waggy]

Yeah the weather apps don't always use the actual GPS for your location. Many of them will use your network-based location, and if you're on wi-fi it can give you some funky results due to your ISP's location resolving to a NOC that can be several miles away.

If your location shows up properly in Maps, then there isn't a problem.

yeah and you do know you can turn off right?

also the weather is 1 issue (just pointing out its not just 1 person) why is google maps showing me 2 miles west of where i live? lol


even network based location giving a location that is 855 miles away? lol

 

[zerogear]

If you are using it outside and it has signal to the GPS system, and it's showing you 2 miles west of where you live, then you probably have a defective phone.

If you're indoors and using triangulation through cell networks (aGPS), it's entirely possible that it shows that.

Network based location can be based entirely on how your ISP is routed.

 

[Robert Munch]

I enjoy the phone. it does a lot i want i to do. But i have to admit the GPS sucks ass.

Not only does it have me living in New Providence New jersey half the time but when the GPS does decide to work its roughly a mile off..

i have done a lot of searching on the internet about it and it seems this is a problem with Samsung phones. they put in very shitty GPS's.

I am slightly worried about using the navigation portion and it getting me lost.


My D2 was old and outdated but the GPS was rock solid ALL the time. not just when i would run programs like GPS status or GPS test. the gps will run great for about an hour after i run those.

I've had this will my Galaxy 1 and 2. Once I got the S3 GPS was spot on everytime loved it. Had to return the S3 because of the shitty echo feed back while using handsfree in the car. Nobody seems to have a fix or workaround for it.

 

[zerogear]

I've had this will my Galaxy 1 and 2. Once I got the S3 GPS was spot on everytime loved it. Had to return the S3 because of the shitty echo feed back while using handsfree in the car. Nobody seems to have a fix or workaround for it.

This was actually fixed in the international SGS3 that I have with Samsung OTA updates. It'll probably be fixed soon for states version.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

About wifi location: Isn't this usually based on Skyhook or whatever location van that drives around like a wardriver like a Google Maps van and maps out all the known wifi networks? I believe that's how it works. SSID + IP or something based location. It's not based on traceroutes and crap. Or maybe it's combined into the calculation, but a traceroute won't get you anywhere close to street level which is useless.

OP: Please download the app "GPS Status," clear the GPS data and sit outside on mobile data only and attempt to get a GPS lock. Count the # of satellites locked.

Google Maps is showing you 2 miles west of where you live, but what is the accuracy circle? 10 meters? Or is it a giant circle? If it's a giant circle it typically means you only have aGPS data and not GPS lock yet. My google Maps tells me I'm pretty far from my neighborhood but I know that's aGPS data. When I installed JellyBean ROMs, it thinks my house and the aGPS location are two separate locations.

 

[matas]

have s1 and s2 and both gps sucks.

 

[slightlyhuman]

i love how smooth JB is on my captivate but i was THIS close to throwing it out the gd window last weekend when i got lost in shreveport and the GPS wouldn't lock for anything.


and for that, darn you samsung.

Edited the profanity in this post. We don't mind the occasional swear word, but this is a technical subforum, and strictly speaking such things are forbidden.

Moderator TheStu

 

[tommo123]

gps sucked on my desire and int sgs2. both though it was the software causing it. for some reason (even though i'm in the UK) both phones started off thinking i was in the US. on both phones i changed the gps.conf file and the difference is night and day. get a lock within 5 secs normally on my galaxy now.

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

actually if you do a search you find people with the same issue (the gps telling weather apps you live in the diffrent areas).

I live in farmland. no trees...didn't fumble settings.

lol sorry i bitched about your guys holly grail lol


http://androidforums.com/samsung-galaxy-s3/593436-set-city-location.html

http://forums.androidcentral.com/sa...r-using-current-location-reads-incorrect.html

http://forums.androidcentral.com/verizon-galaxy-s-iii/188853-gps-navigation-issues.html



and those are just the ones on that site that i have bookmarked..anyway yeah its not happening

Cast a big enough net and you're bound to catch a couple of fish. Also as others mentioned, Weather apps tend to suck although there might be hope. My thunderbolt had my weather way far away at first, but it got fixed with updates eventually.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Cast a big enough net and you're bound to catch a couple of fish. Also as others mentioned, Weather apps tend to suck although there might be hope. My thunderbolt had my weather way far away at first, but it got fixed with updates eventually.

but weather apps should function like any other app requesting location like yelp, latitude, foursquare, facebook, whatsapp.

 

[jhansman]

That's why I rock an Apple iPhone 4S. It just works.

How nice for you. Your non-contribution adds nothing to the discussion or to the OP's problem. For something that might, my brother-in-law just got the SG3 and has no problem with the GPS thus far.

 

[GTaudiophile]

Granted I live in DC but I just turned on my Galaxy Nexus and it took about 10 seconds to get location and acquisition.

 

[shortylickens]

How nice for you. Your non-contribution adds nothing to the discussion or to the OP's problem. For something that might, my brother-in-law just got the SG3 and has no problem with the GPS thus far.

Which is funny cuz I've been......

You know what? Never mind. I cant say anything without getting in trouble.

 

[waggy]

About wifi location: Isn't this usually based on Skyhook or whatever location van that drives around like a wardriver like a Google Maps van and maps out all the known wifi networks? I believe that's how it works. SSID + IP or something based location. It's not based on traceroutes and crap. Or maybe it's combined into the calculation, but a traceroute won't get you anywhere close to street level which is useless.

OP: Please download the app "GPS Status," clear the GPS data and sit outside on mobile data only and attempt to get a GPS lock. Count the # of satellites locked.

Google Maps is showing you 2 miles west of where you live, but what is the accuracy circle? 10 meters? Or is it a giant circle? If it's a giant circle it typically means you only have aGPS data and not GPS lock yet. My google Maps tells me I'm pretty far from my neighborhood but I know that's aGPS data. When I installed JellyBean ROMs, it thinks my house and the aGPS location are two separate locations.

yeah i got GPS status and have done that a few times. i usually get around 12/21 satts.

as for the circle was small.

I took the phone into the Verizion store (wanted a car dock) and the guy hooked it up and did something and its been working great. All the settings are the same too. weird.


edit: also getting 4Glte almost everywhere i go (had a thread about that earlyier). though one building i go into puts me into roaming for some reason.

 

[rcpratt]

After a week of use, the GPS is my sole complaint about my Galaxy S III.

I had significant difficulty getting a GPS lock for things like weather. I have now simply given up on that and set my primary weather location as my hometown, instead of my current location as I prefer.

Now, that said, I have had zero difficulty getting a GPS lock in my car or outside, and have had zero issues with navigation.

edit: Actually, I just checked, and I have no issue getting a GPS lock in maps in my 30-floor office building. The issue must be isolated to my Weather app.

 

[WelshBloke]

After a week of use, the GPS is my sole complaint about my Galaxy S III.

I had significant difficulty getting a GPS lock for things like weather. I have now simply given up on that and set my primary weather location as my hometown, instead of my current location as I prefer.

Now, that said, I have had zero difficulty getting a GPS lock in my car or outside, and have had zero issues with navigation.

edit: Actually, I just checked, and I have no issue getting a GPS lock in maps in my 30-floor office building. The issue must be isolated to my Weather app.

If you're talking about the weather widget it doesn't use gps, I think it either uses cell tower triangulation or just the identifier that the cell tower throws out. Probably the latter if it's always wrong.

 

[rcpratt]

If you're talking about the weather widget it doesn't use gps, I think it either uses cell tower triangulation or just the identifier that the cell tower throws out. Probably the latter if it's always wrong.

Whatever it uses, it sucks. But I am able to "force geolocate" and it tries to lock GPS...unsuccessfully.

 

[WelshBloke]

Whatever it uses, it sucks. But I am able to "force geolocate" and it tries to lock GPS...unsuccessfully.

If you're desperate for a decent weather widget HDwidget works quite well.