What's going on with the latest version of Google Maps' My Location service?

By Phil Nickinson
last updated

Looks like some of you are having problems with the 3.3 release of Google Maps in regards to the My Location feature and its accuracy with cell tower triangulation. The good news is that it's not everybody. On the left, above, is what I'm getting with AT&T. For me, it's more or less as accurate as it was before. Google Maps is showing me about a half-mile from where I actually am, and that's well within the 1,900 meters (or 1.1 miles) it's promising.

Our pal Malatesta, on Sprint, is shown as being in Washington, D.C., with an accuracy of 95,000 meters. OK, but Long Island, N.Y., is definitely more than 59 miles from the nation's capital. And Mal says a friend of his in New York City is showing 45,000-meter accuracy.

And, so, we put it to you. How's My Location holding up? Is it just the big-city folk having issues?

Phil Nickinson
Phil Nickinson

Phil is the father of two beautiful girls and is the Dad behind Modern Dad. Before that he spent seven years at the helm of Android Central. Before that he spent a decade in a newsroom of a two-time Pulitzer Prize-finalist newspaper. Before that — well, we don't talk much about those days. Subscribe to the Modern Dad newsletter!

16 Comments
  • Actually, I've been getting these 1,000km GPS burps for the last three weeks on Telus with my location being reported as Ohio, Pennsylvania and Bermuda (!) yet the phone reports a 4 satellite lock (!!). This was Google Maps 3.2.1, on Telus in Ontario, Canada Now about Google Maps 3.3 -- if I don't use GPS I get "your current position is unavailable". I'll be downgrading to 3.2.1 as I use Latitude extensively
  • Triangulation is way off..
    It shows me in the middle of Manhattan while i'm in south Brooklyn..
    "You location within 22000 meters."
  • I decided to pass on this update based on some of the comments on the official google mobile blog saying that the app was acting strangely and crashing when using layers. Here's just a little more reason to keep my distance for now...
  • Strange!!! Mine is much more accurate after this update!
  • Mine is pretty much the same as before. It puts me in my house. One thing, though, I wasn't able to get it to find any satellites when I first ran it. I wound up opening GPS Radar and turning on GPS in there, then opened Google Maps up and it worked fine after that. The old version would usually find satellites pretty quickly.
  • I am having the same result as gregorypleau. I live in the parkslope brooklyn and it shows me being in midtown manhattan.
  • I am glad that I am not the only one who is usually a mile off or so. This is why I like Bing more. Bing is spot on and stays on if you use the track me via gps. I was ready to get an expensive gps, but not after finding bing, only thing I need is for it to speak.
  • Using WiFi trangulation, I was within 100 meters and using GPS, within 10 meters.
  • Right, I don't think anyone is having problems with those, it's just the cell tower ID method (AFLT) that is really screwed up.
  • I had this problem after I reinstalled googe maps once, then realised I hadn't yet ticked "Use GPS", took 2 car journeys to realise :-|
  • I was having issues with the GPS as well, not just triangulation.
  • ...I'm in Liverpool, NY a suburb of Syracuse, NY. When I'm downtown Syracuse at work...it's extremely accurate. When I'm home...it says I'm in Stockholm...Yes Stockholm...not even in the correct country.
  • yeah if my gps is off, and relying on the cell towers, it shows me in florida, even though i live in richmond va! only since i upgraded to 3.3.1, before that, it worked fine!
  • Interesting. I have sprint and also am on LI and it also says i'm somewhere in washington DC with a radius of 95,000 meters. thats my exactly problem and was mentioned in this blog. Somehow, Sprint + LI + google maps v3.3 = horrible triangulation in this release. The previous version i was using somewhat decent Triangulation accuracy.
  • someone on xda found a workaround for T-mobile TP2. xda post it works on my tmo tp2.
  • hehe, yeah, I just had to look this up because my google maps on my phone says I'm in Chesapeake VA, when I'm in MT... even with gps on... soooo