Have you had problems with the GPS on your iPhone?

Glad you mentioned it!

I use Runkeeper on an Android phone (AT&T HTC Inspire 4G) on my bike commute.

While I am not getting huge discrepancies when it records, lately it has a lot of trouble getting sufficient reception to begin recording.

In the past few weeks, about 25% of the time I give up.

I’ve been wondering if solar flares might be the cause. Seriously.

Hindustan Times – September 27, 2011
Huge solar flare slams into Earth…The strong-to-severe (Kp=8) geomagnetic storm is likely to disrupt GPS signals, radio communications and power grids…

New Scientist September 27, 2006
Solar flares will disrupt GPS in 2011…Navigation, power and communications systems that rely on GPS satellite navigation will be disrupted by violent solar activity in 2011, research shows…

That is interesting. I have also noticed that the GPS in the car seems to be taking forever to find satellites and is also giving many incorrect directions. But I didn’t make a correlation to my phone.

Isn’t that something the New Scientist in 2006 predicted it!

Wonder how long it will go on???

Thanks @jaytkay GA to you.

I have been having minor hiccups with my Droid X GPS recently. I first suspected sunspots or solar flares, and never bothered to look into it based on that assumption; thank you, @jaytkay, for confirming my guess.

@rooeytoo It appears to be part of an 11-year cycle. It will happen a bit for the next year or so then quiet down for about a decade.

A guy on one of the Mac groups just told me to google “iPhone GPS reset.” Apparently GPS problems have been ongoing for quite some time, so maybe cannot be blamed solely on solar flare. It is night time here so I can’t try the fixes described but I will tomorrow. In the meantime when I went out earlier this evening, it worked fine again???

But you folks both are using Android, so who knows.

I use Wase and have not had any problems with it, I’ve never used runkeeper

Hey @DrBill – I have since discovered that it takes a while for runkeeper to figure out where I am. If I start it in a new area it usually says I have traveled an extraordinary number of kilometers when I have yet to move because it is still at the location of my last run. So I stop it and then start it again and it is fine. I will look at Wase, is it good?

Personally, I like Waze. It has it’s hiccups, especially when the GPS satellites get wonky, but overall it’s a good GPS app.

The only app I can find is Waze Inc. says it is a social GPS traffic and navigation app, fun community based, etc.

Is that the one you mean?

When I asked the question it was specifically directed at the Runkeeper app. And as I said, I now have that one figured out. For actual navigation I have Navigon on the iphone. It works very well and eliminates the need for an additional device in the car.

Yes.

When I searched for Wase (with an S) with any sort of location-type app, it found nada, so I assumed a typo, especially since the S and Z are pretty close together on the keyboard.