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iPhone 16e 16e Compass weirdness?

J

jntdroid

macrumors Pekingese
Original poster
Oct 12, 2011
1,133
1,630
So I've had two 16e's and both behaved the same way, and it's been awhile since I've had an iPhone that did this.

It's not a huge deal, but in apps that use GPS, I've noticed the arrow being off. For example, I'm driving east on a highway, but the arrow in the Maps app is pointing south. If I move the phone around, it maintains that 90 degree discrepancy. So it's sensing the movement just fine, it's just off in its direction. When it's happening, it happens across any app that's pinpointing my location - Apple Maps, Google Maps, Flight Radar, etc. The apps work fine, the arrow just reflects the phone pointing in the wrong direction.

I've done the old arm twist/roll to try and recalibrate the phone (I don't even know if that's a thing any more) to no avail.

It's also not all the time - but enough for me to notice.

Maybe this is normal iOS behavior and I just hadn't noticed on my prior devices, but wondered if others were seeing this. Thx!
 
Paddle1 said:
Is there some kind of magnet nearby that could be interfering?
Click to expand...

No I don't believe so given that it happens in multiple areas.

It's definitely inconsistent, sometimes it seems to work ok. But like this morning, for example, having it sit on a table and putting it parallel with a 15 Pro, the 16e is slightly off. When both are pointing straight south, the 15 Pro is spot on right at 180°, while the 16e is closer to 160°, and they maintain that discrepancy no matter which direction they're pointing.

Could the lack of a UWB chip have anything to do with it? I wouldn't think so, but this type of thing used to happen on older phones years ago, and it's been years since the UWB chip was left out, so... 🤷‍♂️
 
Still can't figure this out. Inconsistently happening, but I can't get it to fix itself when it does, and I can't figure out any correlation with anything that could be causing it. Then randomly it will start working again (though never when I'm watching it).

Example below (I have my phone pointing straight south). Even the regular Compass app reflects this discrepancy. Sorry for the markups, didn't want to give away any location details! 😨

compass.jpg


Not a huge fan of this if I'm being totally honest. It's rare, but if/when the Compass is ever needed, this is obviously problematic.
 
jntdroid said:
Still can't figure this out. Inconsistently happening, but I can't get it to fix itself when it does, and I can't figure out any correlation with anything that could be causing it. Then randomly it will start working again (though never when I'm watching it).

Example below (I have my phone pointing straight south). Even the regular Compass app reflects this discrepancy. Sorry for the markups, didn't want to give away any location details! 😨

Not a huge fan of this if I'm being totally honest. It's rare, but if/when the Compass is ever needed, this is obviously problematic.
Click to expand...

Things I've tried when it's happening:
  • Moving the phone in every possible direction, flipping, etc. - to try to recalibrate it
  • Toggling wi-fi off for a bit (it's happened both when on or off wi-fi, though)
  • Toggling airplane mode on for a bit to see if carrier triangulation is playing a part and if using only GPS would help (no luck so far)
  • Rebooting obviously
🤷‍♂️
 
It might be worth getting a cheap magnetic compass to compare it against. The one in the phone is, as I understand, also a magnetic compass.

I’ve long wondered why Apple doesn’t at least offer the option to use the GPS and inertial sensors instead of the magnetic compass, or to do minute-by-minute calibration / adjustment of the magnetic compass with that information. Mathematically, it’s trivial …

b&
 
I'll try and see if I can find one to test out the next time it's happening. I know other phones around me are working fine when mine does this. And it's fixed itself since the post an hour ago. So weird lol
 
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