Question about iPhone golf apps

chas521 · March 25, 2012

My friend has an iPhone [3GS, I think it is]. Whatever golf GPS app he downloads to it, it's kinda slow in getting the distances. When he gets to his ball and is standing still, the phone keeps bouncing around with the yardage and finally [after quite a while] keys in on the correct yardage number. I have a Garmin Approach G5 and he keeps asking me the yardage because he doesn't trust what he is seeing on his iPhone due to all the changing of numbers. Is there a setting on the phone or in an app that he needs to change to stop this from happening? Other members here say that the different apps get to the yardage number pretty quickly.

chas521 · March 26, 2012

I may have found the answer elsewhere:

The GPS is handled by the iPhone. The Golfshot software doesn't control this aspect of the phone. Most members report great results with their iPhone's GPS signal, but it can take some understanding of how the phone handles GPS.

The GPS being sporadic is likely a result of the iPhone trying to preserve battery life. It has an "Auto-Lock" setting, which goes into effect after you haven't interacted with the phone for a period of time. This Auto-Lock shuts down many of the phone's services including the display and the GPS signal. When you un-lock the phone, the signal can take 30 seconds to a minute to reacquire GPS signal. The phone will still alert the Golfshot software that it has good signal even during this reacquisition time.

[b]You can change the Auto-Lock setting for your iPhone by going to Home > Settings > General > Auto-Lock. [/b]

If you set this to Never, you may run into battery issues (be sure it's fully charged at the start of your round). You can also buy devices that add charge to the phone if needed. These are available at the Apple Store and elsewhere.

Aithos · March 26, 2012

It depends on which app he has, I use golfshot and there are two settings you want to change: first, turn off auto lock and only manually lock the iPhone. Second, there is a setting for background gps even when you lock the phone and I set mine to 5-10 min. That way it keeps our gps connection going, and you should be unlocking the phone at least that often to check yardage or enter a score. Works great.