GPS problem with non moving iphone. Does Apple consider us users as totally infantile?

I had a problem that when traveling by boat the GPS dropped working for the boating app after a few seconds. Then I discovered that when picking up the iphone, the GPS information, that was read by the boating app, returned. At first I had the idea that the GPS signals were weak and my body fluids worked as a kind of extra antenna. But then by accident I noticed that the GPS signal returned when there were some waves that caused the boat to move extra. And so it turns out that Apple has apparently built in a security risk feature that when the iphone is not moving (apart from the very slow movement of the boat) it switches GPS off. Probably is this to protect us from being tracked in some way.

An adult approach would leave it to the user to decide if this is a risk the user wants to take (so introduce a setting to turn off this security measure). But not so at Apple. I am getting very tired of trying to find ways to get around the unspecified safety measures that are not under control by me, the user.

This is NOT a small minor problem. The app that I use is the most used boating app at least in the Netherlands. The developers got thousands of complaints from apple users and in spite of specifying that location services can be used always as specified by the developers the user should do,all these users couldn’t use the app and basically had to buy an Android phone! Actually the developpers were totally in the dark because it had worked properly before.

So Is there a work around?? (I am building now a little device to keep my iphone mechanically moving now as a solution but I prefer as software solution!!!!)

What activity type is used? The location manager will only update the location when a significant change is detected. This is intended behaviour to save battery life and depends on the activity type set.

Which "boating app" are you using?

iOS has a feature that can pause location updates when it thinks you have stopped moving (for power reasons, not security); whether this is enabled can be controlled by each app, but it defaults to ON:

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/corelocation/cllocationmanager/pauseslocationupdatesautomatically

Ask the developers of your app whether they set this property.

A more recent, and related, feature is the "stationary" property of CLUpdate:

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/corelocation/clupdate/4337718-stationary

GPS problem with non moving iphone. Does Apple consider us users as totally infantile?
 
 
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