Location Location Location

[AlignedChaos]

With my Xperia Z now running KitKat 4.4.2 (also known as Vlad, destroyer of batteries), I've discovered a little oddity with the location.

With my Location settings set to 'High Accuracy' (GPS+WiFi+Cell), by phone seems completely unable to work out where it is, however set it to 'Device only' (GPS alone) it is spot on and fast.

So if you find your phone struggling to come to terms with it's location - try setting Location as 'Device Only'.  For me it has worked even, curiously, indoors.

[Anonymous]

Thank you for sharing.

[MI5]

Some other forums are reporting phones saying they're in France so I suspect a bug in the works somewhere.

[Anonymous]

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@AlignedChaos wrote:

With my Xperia Z now running KitKat 4.4.2 (also known as Vlad, destroyer of batteries), I've discovered a little oddity with the location.

Sony are not very good at geolocation.  I had a Sony Xperia 10 a couple of years ago.  I took a photo of a railway station in County Antrim in Northern Ireland.  When uploaded to Flickr the geotag co-ordinates that were attached to the photo placed the station in the middle of the North Sea.  Somehow Sony and/or whoever was responsible for the software that recorded geotag information forgot the convention that longitude west of the Greenwich meridian is  "negative", while east is positive.  Sony support just ignored my requests for a fix and I have not chosen a Sony phone since then.

Gerry

[anticpated]

I'm not really that keen on this new Location setting, as I want to be able just choose what mode of location reporting manually.

[Anonymous]

I agree.

Thankfully I can modify my settings in my phone so that location settings can be adjusted to suite.

I have noticed on occasion that my location is sometimes off and just accept it as a tech glitch. 😞

[AlignedChaos]

Last update relating to the battery drain, Google Play Services etc (Xperia Z, Kitkat).

I spoke with Sony who recommended a backup, full reset then restore of my phone to resolve the issue,  Having followed their advise, i'd recommend that if you also follow their suggestion (don't), DO NOT use Sony PC Companion.  After a full (reported sucessful) backup, I reset the phone and then restored.  Except I didn't because PC Companion continuously told me that 'some files' could not be restored, but didn't tell me what.

As a result, I've lost some data from apps (that aren't backed up by Google), and a few photo's and video's.

Also, the Google Play Service battery issue is still apparent, and Sony have now acknowledged it.

So, from my experience, stick with setting your Location to Device rather that the drastic backup/wipe/restore fiasco.

</nightmare>

[Anonymous]

@AlignedChaos thankyou for the update. 

I have noticed a similar issue with the Xperia Tablet Z relating to battery drain via Google play services.  Although I also have the Z2 Phone which has been fine even with high accuracy location settings enabled.

[viridis]

Another one to watch is Google ad services, constantly looking for location so any ads are interest and location based.
Can be rectified by going to settings- accounts- google- ads then tick opt out.

[viridis]

@Anonymous uninstall updates to Google play services then only update as an app requests it, wipes the services history and settings for post updated mess.