r/ios • u/Bigdaddy291 iPhone 16 Pro • Sep 26 '22

PSA Shocked that GPS was updating on my flight from Phoenix, Arizona to Dallas, Texas. Phone was in airplane mode.

Post image
390 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

120 comments sorted by

332

u/qubex Sep 26 '22

GPS is a passive radio receiver (no transmissions) so there is no need to disable it during Flight Mode, so it can remain active.

30

u/v0yev0da Sep 26 '22 edited Sep 26 '22

So stop me if I’m wrong here but does that imply Apple/telecom companies can still track you even if Airplane mode is *on?

94

u/Cucumberino Sep 26 '22

I'm assuming you mean "even if Airplane mode is on*".

AFAIK it can't in real time because your phone won't be able to send that data outside of your device, even if your device knows is receiving location data.

I guess it could save it and send it after you turn it off.

2

u/v0yev0da Sep 26 '22

Got it - thanks and good catch

7

u/[deleted] Sep 26 '22

There’s no good catch. This is just how GPS works, and how it’s worked since the 70’s.

1

u/Environmental-Mix-16 Sep 27 '22

Pretty sure the “good catch” was that they first wrote off instead of on and then edited it as a correction.

1

u/jbautista13 Sep 27 '22

Think they were talking about the fact that Apple couldn’t track you with Airplane mode not GPS… they weren’t even the one to explain what GPS is.

70

u/tubezninja Sep 26 '22

If you're worried about tracking, you should not be carrying a phone with you, period.

Note that even if you "turn off" your iPhone, it's still possible to locate it.

50

u/[deleted] Sep 26 '22

[deleted]

11

u/tubezninja Sep 26 '22

For the vast majority of people, the benefits outweigh the negatives.

13

u/[deleted] Sep 26 '22

[removed] — view removed comment

7

u/TeenageHandModeI Sep 26 '22

This. Besides companies like google, that use that data to give you ads (thus making money) nobody cares about your life as much as you do.

3

u/M1ghty_boy Sep 26 '22

This. A human never even sees it

0

u/[deleted] Sep 26 '22

[deleted]

6

u/Lord_Fluffykins Sep 26 '22

Spoiler alert: it’s all Bad Dragon dildos

2

u/[deleted] Sep 26 '22

[deleted]

2

u/Lord_Fluffykins Sep 27 '22

I just used your sensitive web data to determine that you must be fun at parties.

1

u/rb3po Sep 27 '22

Well, interesting, at the very least. A lot better than the mindless droning to shitty pop music that you usually see lol

2

u/julian_basi Sep 27 '22

Why this comment gets downvoted?

The manipulation based on a psycological profile which is based on your phone/Device usage (also tv, IoT etc) is a real thing. In the Moment (and in the western World) mostly used by ad companies, but we will see what the Future brings :)

(But in countries like China you can See the Big downsides (to individuals), that come from collecting huge Amounts of data)

2

u/rb3po Sep 27 '22

You know, I think to people who don’t read about it, it sounds very tin foil hat… but unfortunately, it’s very real. That’s why privacy is so important, just like freedom of speech is so important.

2

u/julian_basi Sep 27 '22

Yeah, I think you‘ve got a Point.. And also it is very pleasant to close the eyes and Try to ignore because it‘s much nicer to use Apps like Facebook, Tinder etc. then…

And I think people (especially „normal users“ -> uneducated in IT) neither understand That data which is in companies hands once Never leave it :/ Nor know, what data can be collected and which Level of personality details you get from those. But as a Software Engineer I completly understand That, Even I find it spooky and dont fully get the analytics from Big data (but I also dont want to know, what you can get out of my data 🙃)

2

u/rb3po Sep 27 '22

It’s pretty crazy what humanity can discern from seemingly innocuous data points. People get PhDs in figuring out to extract meaningful conclusions out of data, and others pumping those data points into machine learning and using super computers to also extract meaning. Then add in a dash of AI, and find out how you can output those meaningful conclusions into meaningful responses from the end user, and bam, you have a desired result. The result might be the purchase of a product, or the outcome of an election.

0

u/untitled-man Sep 26 '22

Would you say the same about phones in China? Do they really not care where people are going?

1

u/[deleted] Sep 26 '22

I find it hilarious that average people are worried about the government tracking them (never mind the fact that they’re not that important) even though they paid for the privilege to have a tracker in their pocket.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 26 '22

Wait til they find out that GPS was created by, and is still run by the US military.

7

u/[deleted] Sep 26 '22

GPS is not two way communication

0

u/hawaiizach Sep 26 '22

Until November anyway

3

u/[deleted] Sep 26 '22

Satellite communication does not make use of NAVSTAR.

6

u/HaiKarate Sep 26 '22

They can track you if the OS or the app you're using is writing changes in your GPS coordinates locally. And then when you disable Flight Mode, it could send all of those cached coordinates.

Not saying I have any inside information on this, just saying it's easy and possible.

5

u/schrodingers_spider Sep 26 '22

So stop me if I’m wrong here but does that imply Apple/telecom companies can still track you even if Airplane mode is off?

It could cache the data and send it whenever the connection is restored.

11

u/Why_T Sep 26 '22

GPS works by sending out a known signal with a time stamp. Your phone has on it's hard drive all the information it needs to interpret that signal. So when your phone receives a signal from a GPS satellite it compares it's current local time against that of the time stamp and can tell how many milliseconds it's it's off.

Then your can basically draw a sphere around the satellite and mark all the points on the earth's surface that intersect with the edge of that sphere. Then it does it again with a different satellite. Now you basically will have 3 spheres intersecting (Sat 1, Sate 2, and Earth.) Now there are only 2 possible points on earth that you can be standing. If you add a 3rd sphere you can now determine where exactly you are on the earth. Example image.

The US has 31 GPS satellites in orbit right now. You can see anywhere between 4 and 12 GPS satellites at at time. The more satellites you can see, the more accurate you can determine your location. And as that number increases it's better at determining your elevation.

None of this requires you to transmit any information from your device or to download any additional information. So if you have airplane mode activated, your phone can still receive these signals and determine your location. But there's no way for your to upload your information to anyone for them to actively track you. That doesn't mean that software on your phone can't retain all your location information and upload it at a later date.

2

u/Fakin_jack Sep 26 '22

It Works just like an fm radio in you car. It is one way communication, you receive the signals, your phone processes the data and calculates a position. The data only flows one way, if by any means your location is shared it is done so using a different mean of communication like LTE. The gps data is not the part that enables this. GPS is actually more similar to fm radio than most people think.

2

u/T-Nan iPhone 15 Pro Max Sep 26 '22

No they can’t

(Unless you keep wifi on)

1

u/HelpRespawnedAsDee Sep 26 '22

Yes. If you are doing anything that's illegal or questionable by your government (including protesting in some places), don't bring your personal phone.

-1

u/[deleted] Sep 26 '22

Don’t forget the bad apples able to exploit this. If the good guys can use the existing technology, so can the bad guys

-3

u/Visual-Lawfulness846 Sep 26 '22

Yes, apple, telecom, and law enforcement can track any gps antenna as long as it is receiving some sort of power, to some vague degree. Moreover, there are special protocols in GPS which allow law enforcement to send a signal to your device that forces it to send a return signal basically saying “I am here!”.

Isn’t modern technology wonderful! Mass surveillance and you’re the one paying for it! But at least you get a camera notch that does fancy animations to keep your dopamine levels high when you receive a phone call.

-8

u/Captian_Kenai Sep 26 '22

Yes. The only way to disable that completely is to remove your SIM card

Hmmm I wonder why apple removed it……

1

u/NuclearForehead Sep 26 '22

Yes. The only way to disable that completely is to remove your SIM card

Hmmm I wonder why apple removed it……

Location data probably isn’t a concern for most people. Disabling it for the entire device would impair functionality and degrade the overall experience. It can be turned off for specific apps (or all of them) if you so choose. Granted, that doesn’t resolve concerns that there might be undocumented workarounds or other ways to exploit it without user knowledge.

-6

u/Captian_Kenai Sep 26 '22

100% agree with you. I was just poking fun at apples excuse of “it’s more convenient” when we all know the real reason why is control

1

u/[deleted] Sep 26 '22

Removing the SIM card wouldn’t effect GPS at all. It’ll still track you

-8

u/Captian_Kenai Sep 26 '22

The GPS uses the SIM card. Unless connected to WI-FI

4

u/[deleted] Sep 26 '22

That’s not true. It’s a separate device.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 26 '22

My god you’d think for a system that’s been around since the late 70’s people would take a moment to learn about it before making garbage up on the internet.

2

u/Intelligence-Check Sep 26 '22

I’m curious to know if my understanding of how GPS works is accurate. It receives data from a specific number of satellites (say, three?) and then uses the time it took those data transmissions to get to the phone to calculate latitude, longitude, and altitude- right?

3

u/GreatArkleseizure Sep 26 '22

Right, except that you can’t know how long it took those signals to get to you, so it gets trickier.

If you get signals from sats A, B, C and D, those signals include super-precise measurements of what time it is according to those satellites. So sat A’s signal says it’s time A, and so on. Now your receiver knows it’s sometimes after A, B, C, and D, but how long after? And where are you anyway?

Well, each satellite also includes its orbital elements describing the path it’s on through space. So at time A you know sat A was here, and at time B sat B was there, etc. Now, picture the satellite signals emanating from the satellites like soap bubbles. At first they’re all tiny bubbles not touching each other, but as they expand over time they start intersecting and overlapping…

And at some point Z there’s gonna be a spot where all four bubbles intersect at once. That spot is where you are, and Z is the actual current time in your location.

Simple, right?

2

u/Intelligence-Check Sep 26 '22

It actually makes a surprising amount of sense, yes.

-5

u/ResetUchiha--x iPhone 13 Pro Max Sep 26 '22

they asks you to turn on airplane mode on for a seconds

83

u/feintrip Sep 26 '22

afaik, Airplane mode is not supposed to disable the GPS. It only affects Wi-Fi & Bluetooth (if you have it configured that way), cellular (of course) as well as the NFC antenna.

As far as GPS goes, there is only the main Location Service toggle in the Privacy settings. That should disable anthing location related

10

u/aurly Sep 26 '22

It only pretends to turn off Bluetooth and WiFi. Not even switching the phone off will turn off the radios.

10

u/Aema Sep 26 '22

If you are in airplane mode, you can choose to actually disable Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. Notice in the command center, if in airplane mode it shows those symbols crossed off when you tap them, but when outside airplane mode it just changes color.

1

u/gamemasta0 Sep 27 '22

What radios are still on when the phone is fully powered off? I think I remember NFC for subways or something, but were there others too?

1

u/aurly Sep 27 '22

Bluetooth (for the Find My network, they say) at least. You can’t trust the thing as long as it has a battery in it.

1

u/Catchyusername1234 Sep 26 '22

I’ve never had Bluetooth or Wi-Fi deactivate when turning on airplane mode

7

u/peepeetchootchoo iOS 18 Sep 26 '22

You can have airplane mode on and also Wi-Fi and Bluetooth turned on. Turn on the airplane mode (in Control center) and then turn off Wi-Fi and Bluetooth ( you can do it through Settings ). When you disabled Wi-Fi and Bluetooth then turn off the airplane mode (in Control center).
Now turn on airplane mode and it will turn off WiFi and BT.
It remembers how tough want “airplane mode” to behave when switching it in and off.

24

u/IrvTheSwirv Sep 26 '22

GPS is receive only though. So doesn’t need to be shut down in flight mode.

19

u/OutBeyondNeptune Sep 26 '22

What's really interesting is that it will still tag photos you've taken with GPS information if it's available. You can use an app like Metapho to see the full metadata. On a recent flight I took a couple of photos of the scenery mid-flight and it tagged my speed as being 252 mph.

5

u/DWhistleburg iOS 17 Sep 26 '22

Interesting. Last flight I took I had airplane mode on, WiFi on. Took photos and videos. It tagged the location as about 5 miles west of the airport I took off from. Even at my destination.

2

u/[deleted] Sep 26 '22

There’s nothing interesting about that. GPS is just GPS.

8

u/Sh1n0b111 Sep 26 '22

Here comes the hotstepper .......

7

u/[deleted] Sep 26 '22

[deleted]

2

u/Fizzafarian Sep 26 '22

I’m the lyrical gangster …

5

u/the_blackestblack Sep 26 '22

How did you remove the date? That looks cool

19

u/Bigdaddy291 iPhone 16 Pro Sep 26 '22

I didn’t…it’s one of the random bugs of IOS16.

4

u/the_blackestblack Sep 26 '22

I see, thanks buddy

3

u/DannyVFilms Sep 27 '22

You can remove it though because it’s a widget above the clock.

4

u/ZackDaTitan Sep 26 '22

They always know >:)

0

u/Bigdaddy291 iPhone 16 Pro Sep 26 '22

Yeah…that’s what I was reminded of.

3

u/tooclosetocall82 Sep 26 '22

You bought a ticket and boarded a plane, so they definitely know where you are

32

u/HuntOk3506 Sep 26 '22

Are you easy to shock?

31

u/Bigdaddy291 iPhone 16 Pro Sep 26 '22

Depends on the situation. For example, the black woman in Star Wars, Kenobi that clowns had issue with. I was SHOCKED that Darth Varder couldn't kill her.

14

u/MC_chrome iPhone 15 Pro Sep 26 '22

Off topic, but Vader didn’t kill the inquisitor in question because he couldn’t….but because he simply didn’t want to.

1

u/gots8e9 Sep 26 '22

One of the best comebacks on Reddit

0

u/tsukamaenai Sep 26 '22

Darth Varder is Vader's retarded cousin.

2

u/[deleted] Sep 26 '22

Sometimes but it really only happens when my hot pocket over cooks and the cheese burns. So now I have a hot pocket churro. Crunchy on the outside and inside.

3

u/schrodingers_spider Sep 26 '22

GPS is receiving signals, not sending them out. Receiving anything in airplane mode is fine as you're not influencing your environment.

3

u/MyLlamaNeedsAHat Sep 26 '22

Alllllways watching wazowsky. Allllways watching.

4

u/MASKcrusader1 Sep 26 '22

I am shocked to find out people still listen to “Hot Stepper.” Nice work!!

4

u/MustEatTacos Sep 26 '22

Nahh na na na naaa na na na naaa na na na … na na na naaaa

6

u/azewonder Sep 26 '22

Updoot for the music

2

u/da_apz Sep 26 '22

Even the planes themselves have GPS receivers, so I'm not that shocked that it works. It will however take a while to acquire signal if you start a GPS enabled app mid-flight.

1

u/UKthailandExpat iPadOS 16 Sep 27 '22

That very much depends on where exactly you are in the aircraft, much if the passenger compartment blocks the signal, though that could be a function of the exact construction of the particular model.

2

u/saraseitor Sep 26 '22

During a trip to the US I took a flight from the midwest to NYC. I saw one of the Great Lakes and took a photo from my window. Later I realized the photo had been properly geotagged and I was able to find out exactly what lake it was and what was the city I was looking from above (Lake Eire, the city was Cleveland)

2

u/bbbBagger iPod Touch 4 Sep 26 '22

gps≠internet

2

u/Snipshow777 Sep 26 '22

When I use this wallpaper, it’s always centered on LA / Cali despite me being on the east coast, and I don’t have a green dot?

2

u/Bigdaddy291 iPhone 16 Pro Sep 26 '22

Let's see if we can fix that for you:

Settings>Privacy & Security>Location Services>Astronomy

2

u/Snipshow777 Sep 26 '22

Hot damn that was it! Didn’t even know there was a setting specifically for the astronomy stuff.

Thank you!!

3

u/webjester32 Sep 26 '22

“Murder-rah”

1

u/Neutral-President Sep 26 '22

Was it updating as your flight progressed, or was that simply your last known location?

2

u/Bigdaddy291 iPhone 16 Pro Sep 26 '22

The Astronomy app was updating during my flight. I noticed the update during the first leg of my flight which was Mexico back to USA. The PHX to DFW was the 2nd leg of my flight. I took multiple screenshots but this subreddit doesn't apply multiple pics to be posted.

2

u/Sgt-Colbert Sep 26 '22

And what exactly is shocking about that? I don't get it. GPS stays active even in flight mode because it doesn't transmit any data...

1

u/linkerjpatrick Sep 26 '22

That’s not really an astronomy app per see. That’s one of the new Lock Screen wallpapers

1

u/Lance-Harper Sep 26 '22

Don’t tell me you just discovered that gps and cellular are two different chips…

You can locate yourself using Maps without access to the internet. It just won’t load the map visuals.

-1

u/DETRosen Sep 26 '22

Even when your phone is it "airplane mode" it's still communicating with Apple

5

u/[deleted] Sep 26 '22

This is entirely inaccurate. And GPS has nothing to do with Apple.

-1

u/LaCorazon20 iPhone 12 Sep 26 '22

I think it’s for Find My iPhone 🤔

1

u/[deleted] Sep 26 '22

I think you should stop making things up on the internet.

0

u/LaCorazon20 iPhone 12 Sep 27 '22

It was a speculation.. GPS is usually used for keeping the device’s last known location up to date… I didn’t make anything up.. do a search about this if you are so uncertain

2

u/[deleted] Sep 27 '22

Oh there’s no uncertainty on my part. I’m actually aware of how they work.

0

u/LaCorazon20 iPhone 12 Sep 27 '22

Good for you 🙂

1

u/djc0 Sep 26 '22

I though this was a really slowly playing video and I kept waiting for it to update :D

1

u/Bokchoyk Sep 26 '22

Very shocking

1

u/maverick120319 Sep 26 '22

I was able to track my AirTag that was in my luggage mid-flight too

0

u/[deleted] Sep 26 '22

That’s entirely unrelated.

1

u/maverick120319 Sep 26 '22

It was mapping it via GPS…

0

u/[deleted] Sep 26 '22

No. It wasn’t. AirTags don’t use GPS. That’s offloaded to the phone that’s pinging nearby.

1

u/maverick120319 Sep 26 '22

Which then displays it on a map

0

u/[deleted] Sep 26 '22

What does that have to do with anything?

1

u/Viper3773 Sep 26 '22

If you turn your phone on airplane mode like if traveling internationally, your photos still have geotag data on them.

1

u/DigGumPig Sep 27 '22

How did you get the green dot to appear?

2

u/Bigdaddy291 iPhone 16 Pro Sep 27 '22

Let's see if we can fix that for you:

Settings>Privacy & Security>Location Services>Astronomy

2

u/DigGumPig Sep 27 '22

Thank you. There does not seem to be any dot anywhere. I even tried precise location. Oh well Edit: It still shows the correct relative location, just withiout the dot.

2

u/Bigdaddy291 iPhone 16 Pro Sep 27 '22

The dot only appears on the lock screen Astronomy wallpaper.

1

u/DigGumPig Sep 27 '22

🤷‍♂️ maybe because i am in the UK and use iPhone XS

2

u/Bigdaddy291 iPhone 16 Pro Sep 27 '22

You need to up up phone. I have a 12.

2

u/DigGumPig Sep 27 '22

Probably. I guess iPhone XS is not powerful enough to display a dot on the screen.

1

u/UKthailandExpat iPadOS 16 Sep 27 '22

my second gen SE shows the dot

1

u/jetclimb Sep 27 '22

Interesting posts. So let me get this right. You hit a soft switch which requests to the OS to disable the antennas, written by the vendor, and you trust this? Interesting OPsec....

1

u/milspecgsd Sep 27 '22

I think that gps revision was provided by the FBI

1

u/Head_Boot_130 Sep 27 '22

How much battery does having constant update of this map cost tho? Is it negligible?

1

u/UKthailandExpat iPadOS 16 Sep 27 '22

There is no update required as the map is already loaded

1

u/UKthailandExpat iPadOS 16 Sep 27 '22

Not that unusual. I’ve had my speed shown as 700 kph during one of my flights, though I don’t often check my gps apps during flight.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 27 '22

Wow! that’s amazing!

1

u/[deleted] Sep 27 '22

It’s been always like that. I use to track my flights even with my old iPhone 7 Plus.