Different Q: Does GPS chip turn off when 3GS is jailbroken/unlocked?

[Little-Acorn]

I've had trouble getting the location fucntion in the Maps app to work reliably, and sometime it doesn't seem to work at all when I have WiFi shut off.

I bought my 3GS used from a guy who apparently jailbroke it and unlocked it. I'm fine with that, I intended to do those things when I got it, to use it on T-Mobile (which is how I'm using it now).

But the location function has never been very accurate on it, sometimes placing me many blocks away from where I actually was. And sometimes it didn't work at all, especially when I shut of WiFi as an experiment.

Does jailbreaking and/or unlocking shut off the GPS chip entirely? Has my 3GS been doing all its locating purely by WiFi?

My Settings indicate that Modem is 06.15.00. Is that different from a stock 3GS that's not jailbroken? Could it be why my location function is so erratic?

P.S. how on earth does the 3GS get any kind of location info from WiFi? I set up a WiFi hotspot in my own house (which my 3GS works fine on), and I din't recall ever telling the WiFi router what the physical location was. We could be in Timbuktu for all it knows. How does a 3GS figure out its position from WiFi, if that's what it's doing?

 

[iphonewarrior]

Thread moved to the iPhone Unlock section.

I've had trouble getting the location fucntion in the Maps app to work reliably, and sometime it doesn't seem to work at all when I have WiFi shut off.

I bought my 3GS used from a guy who apparently jailbroke it and unlocked it. I'm fine with that, I intended to do those things when I got it, to use it on T-Mobile (which is how I'm using it now).

But the location function has never been very accurate on it, sometimes placing me many blocks away from where I actually was. And sometimes it didn't work at all, especially when I shut of WiFi as an experiment.

Does jailbreaking and/or unlocking shut off the GPS chip entirely? Has my 3GS been doing all its locating purely by WiFi?

My Settings indicate that Modem is 06.15.00. Is that different from a stock 3GS that's not jailbroken? Could it be why my location function is so erratic?

P.S. how on earth does the 3GS get any kind of location info from WiFi? I set up a WiFi hotspot in my own house (which my 3GS works fine on), and I din't recall ever telling the WiFi router what the physical location was. We could be in Timbuktu for all it knows. How does a 3GS figure out its position from WiFi, if that's what it's doing?

Your iPhone 3GS has been unlocked using Ultrasn0w, which is firmware and baseband dependant. The iPhone Dev-Team (MuscleNerd) figured out that the iPad's baseband was unlockable and managed to package said baseband into Redsn0w.

Installing the iPads baseband can and in your case has broken your GPS, which is unfortunate. MuscleNerd did inform people and beta testers at the time of release that this could happen... unfortunately you're stuck without working GPS.

Your phone has A-GPS which is Assisted Global Position System. You phone will triangulate your position (approx) using Cell towers, other methods of locating is through wifi.

I recommend you read this article, it's very informative.


http://www.macworld.com/article/159528/2011/04/how_iphone_location_works.html

 

[Jeronim0187]

I've had trouble getting the location fucntion in the Maps app to work reliably, and sometime it doesn't seem to work at all when I have WiFi shut off.

I bought my 3GS used from a guy who apparently jailbroke it and unlocked it. I'm fine with that, I intended to do those things when I got it, to use it on T-Mobile (which is how I'm using it now).

But the location function has never been very accurate on it, sometimes placing me many blocks away from where I actually was. And sometimes it didn't work at all, especially when I shut of WiFi as an experiment.

Does jailbreaking and/or unlocking shut off the GPS chip entirely? Has my 3GS been doing all its locating purely by WiFi?

My Settings indicate that Modem is 06.15.00. Is that different from a stock 3GS that's not jailbroken? Could it be why my location function is so erratic?

P.S. how on earth does the 3GS get any kind of location info from WiFi? I set up a WiFi hotspot in my own house (which my 3GS works fine on), and I din't recall ever telling the WiFi router what the physical location was. We could be in Timbuktu for all it knows. How does a 3GS figure out its position from WiFi, if that's what it's doing?

you need to download redsn0w 9.14b, run as admin then deselect install cydia and select downgrade baseband.
the 6.15 modem or baseband is for ipad which does not have gps, so once baseband is changed to 6.15, gps works poorly of not at all.