ubuntu-phone team mailing list archive

[Thomas Voß <thomas.voss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, Nov 27, 2015 at 3:05 PM,  <ubuntu.mexon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> I just came back from a three-week backpacking holiday.  My plan was to
> test Ubuntu Touch by carrying my MX4 as my primary phone, falling back
> to an iPhone 4 when necessary.  That plan lasted about a day and a
> half.  After that I used the iPhone and rarely bothered with the MX4.
>

Sorry to hear that you have had a frustrating experience with the
phone. I hope your vacation
still went well, though :) That being said, we fixed quite a few bugs
for our positioning infrastructure and
you might want to check:

  https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/location-service

for open bug reports.

> I have a long list of bugs to file, but the deal-breaker was GPS.  I
> absolutely rely on GPS when travelling.  But GPS on Ubuntu Touch
> basically didn't work at all.  To the point where I don't even know if
> or how it's supposed to work.  Maybe someone can enlighten me, point me
> to the existing bug reports?
>

See before.

> My main point of comparison is my old Nokia N900 running Maemo, with
> Mappero.  Mappero was hugely frustrating but is leaps and bounds ahead
> of anything on Ubuntu.
>
> First of all, GPS doesn't seem to work when the phone is offline.  Is
> this a known issue?  Is it hardware related at all?  The iPhone
> performed very well, especially with Here Maps.  One interesting way it
> beat Mappero is that Mappero would only show me a location once it had
> got a full fix, whereas Here Maps quickly gives me a circle at least a
> few tens of kilometers across.  That's actually useful, for example when
> you suddenly wake up because the night bus has stopped and you need to
> know if it's your stop or not.
>

Whenever the phone goes to deep sleep (that is, it is suspended in your pocket),
the GPS also switches off. It is one of the main parts of the system
draining power.
The behavior is intended at this point in time, though. We are working
on enabling apps
to selectively tell us that they are actively carrying out navigation
tasks to prevent the device
from going to deep sleep, though.

> Second, the main map app I'm using is OSMTouch.  If I open that app it
> doesn't seem to automatically turn on GPS.  I have to separately turn it
> on in the notifications area.  This is surely not how it's supposed to
> work, right?
>
> There are huge problems with OSMTouch, but the reason I'm using that one
> is that it at least caches map tiles for offline use.  Possibly other
> apps work better, but without offline functionality they're all
> irrelevant to me.
>
> However, with OSMTouch, even when I'm online and I get a fix I can't
> zoom to my current location.  After tapping the pin icon, often as not I
> get a message like "geolocation failed".  It sometimes works, sometimes
> doesn't.  There's very little feedback as to what the problem is.
>
> OSMTouch's offline tile caching also doesn't actually work reliably
> enough to be useful.  I deliberately focus on a map I'd like to keep,
> then quit the app.  When I next load that map many of the tiles are
> missing - seemingly at random.
>

Please see https://bugs.launchpad.net/osmtouch for filing bugs against omsTouch.

> I haven't found any map app that allows me to pin points of interest and
> keep them.  Even if there are no actual maps GPS can still be useful
> this way, for example noting down the location of the hotel or park
> entrance so you can always find your way back.  I definitely shouldn't
> have to be online for this - that's the one area where Here maps is a
> complete failure.
>

Probably a good idea to file a feature request against your favorite
mapping app on Ubuntu Touch.

> Coming back to offline GPS use, I've used that on a bunch of devices
> now.  The thing is, it's always slow to get a fix.  Have you ever had
> that thing where you're lost, in a dodgy neighbourhood, in a country
> where you don't speak the language, and it's kinda dark, and you're
> holding your phone up above your head trying to get a good GPS fix, and
> you're wondering if your phone will notice the satellites before the
> local muggers notice your phone?  I get that a lot.  In that situation,
> what I want to know is should I stay still another minute hoping to get
> a fix, or should I just walk somewhere else and see if the reception is
> better?
>
> What I liked about Mappero is that it gave me some insight into what was
> going on, in the form of a bar chart of the signal strength from each
> satellite.  If there are only four or five bars, time to move on.  If
> there are eight or nine bars and they're reasonably strong, give it a
> minute and it'll have a fix.  I was able to use this to figure out that
> standing still works best.  Any feedback at all allows you to at least
> experiment, rather than just "geolocation failed".  Is there any API in
> Ubuntu Touch that exposes this information?  Is it even possible with
> the chipsets being used?
>

Sure it is, we are working on exposing the relevant satellite
visibility information to applications right now,
please track https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/location-service/+bug/1448180.

> Even better should be possible: I know that there is an "ephemeris"
> which needs to be downloaded from the satellite, or the internet if
> available.  I'd love to be able to see the status of this data too,
> since this is surely much of the reason for the delay.  Like, a progress
> meter of the download, which location it's for, how stale it is etc.  Is
> there an API for that?
>

The chipset does not expose that information to us. That is, we know
when a download of ephimeris data
has been requested and we try to fulfill it. We could think about
surfacing this state change in the location indicator.
I will file a bug report and link it here for reference later.

> Of course all of this is stuff that should sit under the covers and not
> bother the user.  But when you really need GPS, you GODDAMN REALLY NEED
> IT.  My worst case was being in a national park, trapped, alone, soaked,
> face bleeding, on the wrong side of a river, and sobbing into a phone
> begging for help from a lodge owner who spoke really good Russian and
> Kyrgyz but not that great English.  Admittedly I never managed to tell
> him the location that my N900 was efficiently reporting, but at least I
> knew where I was ;-)
>
> Anyway, GPS is so important to me while travelling that I usually carry
> two GPS devices in case I lose one.  But I'm not willing to carry three
> phones with me.  If things haven't dramatically improved by the next
> time I go travelling I'll just have to reflash my MX4 with Flyme.
>

Again, sorry for the inconvenience. I think you want to try out OTA8
and see if it works better for you.
At any rate: Thanks a lot for your feedback and I would be happy to
chat a little further about your ideas on irc (tvoss@freenode).

Have a great weekend,
Cheers,

  Thomas

>
> --
> Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-phone
> Post to     : ubuntu-phone@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-phone
> More help   : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp