Numerous reports have come out forum sites that claimed navigational and tracking apps on some iPhone 11 models have been acting up. Apparently, the root of the problem has been traced to the devices' GPS functionalities, meaning it could be hardware and software that Apple can exclusively resolve.
It is understood that the problem has been reported by iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro users, and all have complained of funky behavior by the devices' GPS, which supposedly are in an unreliable state. One user, for instance, posted to Reddit of his experience and it was picked up by iMore.
The user revealed he is an athlete and relied on the Strava app to keep watch on his physical routines. He noticed an anomaly since upgrading to the iPhone 11 Pro because "my Strava activities had me pacing much faster."
The issue prompted him to probe and with the help of Strava developers, did some workarounds like factory resetting the affected device or clean installing the latest version of iOS 13. The iPhone GPS still failed to work as expected, and the user can only guess that the problem was brought by any of the following - a faulty GPS chip, a damaged iPhone antenna, or the device's steel frame that prevents the iPhone from "tracking horizontal data correctly."
In short, Apple could be largely at fault as far as the problem is concerned. The user said the possibility is high; his unit was unboxed already bearing the GPS malfunctions though it was unclear if the software or the hardware must be blamed.
"Strava engineers are blaming my iPhone specifically for not tracking GPS data accurately though I am not having an issue with any other GPS app," the user was reported as saying.
It appeared that the same problem plagued other users, and they experienced GPS tracking malfunctions with other applications. One user, according to 9to5Mac, had to deal with inaccurate Waze readings on the iPhone 11 Pro Max.
It was the same experience using Apple Maps or Google Maps for another user, who reported: "my location data is completely off, it's saying I'm in a completely different village and hopping around."
The affected user added his GPS use was problem-free with the iPhone 8, and things only went awry when he upgraded to the iPhone 11 Pro.
The complaints so far on the GPS tracking problems by users on the iPhone 11 models can be characterized as inconsistent, the same report said, adding "it's hard to make any kind of judgment about whether or not this is just impacting a small number of devices."
