I enabled location services in the Settings->Privacy menu. I setup an OpenStreetMap account and got that setup in Maps.
(rant)By the way, this took MULTIPLE attempts because the validation code goes off screen and I cannot scroll left/right without doing some crazy hold/drag/highlight finger manipulations. This is especially difficult since I have a dexterity impacting disability. Please add +/- buttons to UI screens or something! Pretty please with sugar on top? (/rant)
I notice that in the Location Settings page, it has a list of apps that have requested access. Maps has not requested access and I don’t see a UI option to add it manually. This user experience could use some love considering it’s probably a core app most n00bs like myself will want to figure out how to use first.
Setting the display scale to 100% sometimes helps to change some settings. Or using an external monitor in convergence mode. I do get a quite decent location, but not via GPS. See also this thread.
(And actually, according to the “Keyboard Shortcuts” in Maps preferences, you don’t even need the Ctrl key, just the - and + will work by themselves; but I’ll leave the Ctrl key screenshot, in case it’s needed when adjusting other apps.)
I’ve got something semi-relevant to this, maybe. If nothing else it’s a data point.
Well, I tried maps just to check it out around noon-ish. First it puts my location at spot about half a block away from where I am for maybe 20 seconds, then it puts me in some coastal city in China, then it relocates itself back to near where I am for about 3-5 seconds, then goes back to the spot in China for thirty seconds.
Then I went to do something else for several hours, and now that it’s night I went to check the phone for no real reason and it’s locating itself right on my house and holding steady.
I’ve got the cellular modem on but no SIM inserted, if that makes any difference.
So as a test, I closed maps, then reopened it to see what happened. It reasonably quickly located the phone on my house.
Just to be sure, I rebooted the phone, and opened maps again. And it reasonably quickly located the phone on my house.
I’ll see what happens when the sun is up tomorrow, but I am curious what caused that behavior initially. It may have just been bad/old data from the 8 month old factory image (the updates page in the “store” application said last checked 8 months ago), and/or trying me out maps once before checking for and applying updates.
So if anyone knows if there’s anything I ought to do, I’d appreciate it.
The information I’ve gathered seems to indicate that the coastal city in China is possibly where the device was tested or calibrated for the GPS module. It seems that letting it sync with the satelites eventually corrects it. I had the same issue myself and I haven’t noticed it placing me in China for the few recent times I’ve used it.
