ubuntu-phone team mailing list archive

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On 2015-11-27 22:28 , Thomas Voß wrote:
> 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.

Thanks for the link.  But I don't think you're going to get much in the
way of useful bug reports out of me - my chief complaint is the lack of
feedback from the location system about which component is responsible. 
So "GPS doesn't work" is about all I can do for now, hence a too-long
list email rather than a bug report.
>
>> 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.

It kinda sounds like you misunderstood this point.  By "offline" I mean
"has no network connection", not "switched off".  I sat down on a park
bench completely still for ten minutes waiting to get a fix,
deliberately keeping the screen switched on the entire time.  No fix. 
So I came to the conclusion that if the location service doesn't have an
internet connection it doesn't try to get a fix using "pure" GPS. 
Please correct me if I'm wrong.
>> 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.

The failure to automatically turn on GPS, and the "geolocation failure",
presumably aren't bugs in OSMTouch but rather in the location service? 
Unless OSMTouch is using the wrong APIs or using them wrong?
>
>> 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.

I guess, but the broader problem with Ubuntu Touch is that there are
many mapping apps, none of which have the resources to make something
that really works.  I've seen this problem brought up on this list
before.  My take on this is that mapping is a core app, of similar
importance to Dekko.  Like Dekko, one app should be taken under
Canonical's wing and brought up to scratch.  I know, resources, but
that's how I see it anyway.
>
> 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.

Great, glad that this bug is on the radar.  I really believe this will
reduce the stress of trying to use GPS a lot.
> 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).
>
>
FWIW I took care to install OTA8 and re-try before filing my bugs, and I
haven't seen a big improvement.