Select LA-area iPhones insist they're in Boulder, Colorado

The iPhone's iteration of Google Maps has been shown up time and time again by Google Maps Navigation on Android, but a quirk this big just has to be linked to some Skyhook database issue. According to a new report coming from the LA area, select iPhone users in Southbay cities near Los Angeles are seeing their GPS software linked to Boulder, Colorado, and the issue has been going on for around a week now. What's curious is that the erroneous positioning affects other third-party iPhone GPS apps as well, and an ABC report notes that a "spokesperson at AT&T said the problem is with Apple." Pass the blame much, AT&T? So, have any of you LA-based iPhoners found yourself navigating to Folsom Field when trying to find your way to Rodeo Drive?

[Thanks, Charles]

[c w j Posted Mar 21st 2010 6:19PM]

"SF-based iPhones owners put 'Pac's 'I Get Around' on repeat, iPhones confuzzled"

[Binkious Posted Mar 21st 2010 6:20PM]

This isn't exactly new. I have had Google Maps tell me I live in a different state than the one I was in and no, I am not near a border.

It hasn't happened often but a few times since I got my 3G iPhone

[southin Posted Mar 21st 2010 6:20PM]

When in Curacao last December, all my maps, including two apps that had specific maps for Curacao, insisted I was in Sicily, Italy. Only once in 8 days did they correctly locate me in Curacao; every other time they all showed me in Sicily or, for the two Curacao-specific apps, they insisted I was outside their coverage area.

[Mplsmarketing Posted Mar 21st 2010 6:21PM]

Is it "passing the blame" if it's technically true? What is this, TechCrunch?

[nxs10 Posted Mar 21st 2010 6:36PM]

My iphone and my sister's did the same thing on Thursday for a few hours. We had just flown into LAX so I thought my phone was just having weird adjustment issues... Anyways, the problem is not just in SF it's also in the LA area.

[Edobe Posted Mar 21st 2010 6:50PM]

Shout out to my old friends in Lafayete, CO and the rest of the metro areea as well as our rivals in lousville, broomfield, boulder and longmont,.

Centaurus High FTW!!!

[nathanaelc Posted Mar 21st 2010 7:04PM]

LOL!!!

I guess you don't have to worry about being tracked!!

[acabtp Posted Mar 21st 2010 7:06PM]

non-event. lame excuse for news, engadget.

[edub Posted Mar 21st 2010 7:12PM]

me and my nexus one are laughing at you. heartily.

[Wesley Posted Mar 21st 2010 7:25PM]

Why don't you pantent this huh Apple???
LMFAO

[Travisism Posted Mar 21st 2010 7:55PM]

I'm in LA and my google maps GPS has been saying I'm in Boulder for the last week!

[bobthetechguy Posted Mar 21st 2010 7:59PM]

my ipod touch thinks its in Florida, when i live in arkansas. on maps location based services.. and its a wifi hotspot that i use all the time that was accurate down to a few hundred feet

[dpyang Posted Mar 21st 2010 8:06PM]

Don't know if anyone has pointed out the Source: Daily Breeze is a newspaper local to Los Angeles, not San Francisco. "Southbay" is Los Angeles' Southbay, not San Francisco's.

http://www.southbaycities.org/

[Valicore Posted Mar 21st 2010 9:36PM]

@dpyang Excellent catch dude!

[first name Greatest Posted Mar 22nd 2010 2:30PM]

@dpyang
yea i noticed it said SF yesterday, now it says LA

[brl11lant Posted Mar 21st 2010 8:11PM]

I live in Los Angeles and have been having the problem for a week or ten days. Eventually it turned out to be the installation of some new 3G cells, and if I turned off 3G in my iPhone settings it located me just fine. If I moved into another cell area it also found me with the 3G turned on. Yesterday it seemed to be fixed and it's still ok down here at present.

[thanhpluv Posted Mar 21st 2010 8:27PM]

I just tested and no issue was caught.

[redeuxx Posted Mar 21st 2010 9:01PM]

Not really news unless you've never been outside a metropolitan area anymore. In some parts of northern Minnesota, GPS tells me I'm in Rhode Island.

[Mikeserena Posted Mar 21st 2010 9:07PM]

Mine says Im in my neighbors house...... maybe I shouldn't tell anyone.

[rav97 Posted Mar 21st 2010 9:13PM]

Using cell tower triangulation, before the GPS gets a lock, sometimes my Moto Milestone tells me I'm somewhere in the middle of the Pacific Ocean (I'm not, I'm in Europe). Maybe my life is just a bad episode of Lost.

[barkerja Posted Mar 21st 2010 10:24PM]

More often than not my phone(s) [iPhone, HTC Hero and Palm Pre] report as being in Oakland when in fact I am in my home in San Francisco. This has been happening for quite a while now and I blame it on Skyhook. I've even resubmitted my wireless ap's MAC address with the correct location.

[jbcaro Posted Mar 21st 2010 10:40PM]

Hey, what's with changing the article from San Fran to LA? If this is also happening in other parts of the country, just add an update to the text.

[UrAwFuL Posted Mar 21st 2010 10:48PM]

Been getting that too a few times... Although my work-around was to disable my 3G for a few seconds then switched it back on and I'm back to where I was again.

[destroythexlight Posted Mar 21st 2010 10:56PM]

I wouldn't complain. I've been there, Boulder is really nice.

[Quijeeboe Posted Mar 21st 2010 11:23PM]

I actually live in the area affected by this problem, and as soon as I turn off 3G on my iPhone and fall back to the edge network my location is accurate. The problem lies in AT&Ts 3G service (shocking I know) as when using either Edge or Wifi the coordinates are correct.

[mrteeth Posted Mar 21st 2010 11:36PM]

I get this problem everyday with my iPhone and I'm in SLC Ut but mine is in safari when I'm at google.com

[Tsreimer Posted Mar 22nd 2010 1:45AM]

Girlfiend and I had the same problem last week. Seems to occur when a gps signal hasn't been acquired for a long time. Cell phone triangulation doesn't seem to kick in, and it tells you that u are in boulder. It gets fixed when you go outside somewhere with good signal strength.

[sfox8 Posted Mar 22nd 2010 2:19AM]

@hated one
what the heck does your comment have to do with ANYTHING this article is talking about?

[onu Posted Mar 22nd 2010 2:26AM]

@bobthetechguy move to florida.. not a big deal

jobs

sent from my ipaod

[NuShrike Posted Mar 22nd 2010 5:59AM]

@Mmmm Donuts Isn't Skyhook a closed database, where they send their own vans/trucks to scan the area instead of Navizon's open-version where users just run Navizon client and submit that scanned data?

But, this is the reason you should have a real gps setup instead of this cheating A-GPS.

[NameIsDavid Posted Mar 22nd 2010 6:13AM]

A-GPS is real GPS. It simply offloads some of the more complex calculation to a server. Location still comes from satellite data, not tower triangulation.

[jariiik Posted Mar 22nd 2010 7:12AM]

Same thing happened to me on my Nokia N97 when I was in Cardiff.. Don't even know the country I was supposed to be in.. It definitely wasn't the UK.. It went on for a couple of days, even after I've returned to London..The Nokia Maps app was ok, but google maps were getting nuts..

[Jackx36 Posted Mar 22nd 2010 7:52AM]

I don't live in LA but am in central California. On rare occasion, my iPhone tells me I'm one city over. I shrugged it off.

[outergeorge Posted Mar 22nd 2010 10:28AM]

might be a Google Maps thing. I had my Samsung Impression tell me I was in Hong Kong when i was in Texas.

[zoby Posted Mar 22nd 2010 11:44AM]

If it does it on Google Maps for IPhone it would possibly do it on the Nexus just in different area's. Keep in mind that the Google Map uses Cell Site's and their ID's for Triangulation if it cant get a GPS signal. So, if their cell site ID database is off that would cause the issue!

[Mmmm Donuts Posted Mar 22nd 2010 12:55PM]

@NuShrike

Click the link this time derp: http://www.skyhookwireless.com/howitworks/submit_ap.php

See where it says "Submit a Wi-Fi Access Point" and then "The form enables you to update your Wi-Fi Access Point information in the XPS system"? Yeah, open system is open Nu.

[tacarter Posted Mar 22nd 2010 1:03PM]

I had this issue in northern California. It kept saying I was on i10 in Phoenix, AZ. Same place every time and it also effected any location based apps. The solution I found was to turn off 3G for a few minutes, check Google maps until it shows the correct location, then turn 3G back on. It put me back in Phoenix a few times but i haven't had any problems in a few months. Hope this helps.

[NuShrike Posted Mar 22nd 2010 1:31PM]

@Mmmm Donuts Thanks! But have you seen Navizon's client? You just stand in the area, pick up 100 or more APs, and submit with one click. No way to corrupt the data, and IMO easier and more accurate.

I've already accumulated 20K+ APs that I've submitted. Sure gives the Navizon more data to average/overwhelm any corrupt data.

[crazyburns Posted Mar 22nd 2010 3:13PM]

My iPhone tagged a picture I took as being in Florida when I was in North Carolina, but other pictures I took around the same time tagged fine.