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GPS icon confusion

The S4 seems to have two GPS-related icons. The first one attached below seems to come from allowing Access to my location in Settings > More > Location services. The second one attached below is the one to indicate E911-only GPS service, which can't be turned off.

Neither of these icons is mentioned in the phone's icon glossary or the Samsung User Manual, and only the E911 one appears in the Verizon User Guide. The online Samsung S4 icon FAQ (http://www.samsung.com/us/support/faq/FAQ00053678/63327/) says that the first icon below means GPS is turned on. In fact, that is what I thought it meant before the recent VRUDMI1 update. The correct info, since the update at least, actually seems to be as in the Stratosphere [!] FAQ http://www.samsung.com/us/support/faq/FAQ00050991/56138), and as I indicated above.

So did this change with the update? Did it used to be as in the online S4 FAQ? Can anyone who hasn't gotten the update yet confirm what GPS icons they have?

Thanks for helping a geezer with memory issues!

icon.GPS_LocationActive.en[0].png

icon.GPS_Active.en[0].png

Comments

Klue

I have not applied the latest update and my gps icon looks like the first one.

Dave-in-Decatur

Thanks, Klue. That's what I was thinking. Do you have Location services turned on? Does it change if you turn that on (if you wouldn't mind turning it on and turning it off to see)?

Klue

When I turn location services on or off the icon stays the same.

Ann154

Both symbols have been on VZW Android phones since the Droid Eris. I had to turn off "Access to my location" to remove the radiating bars coming off the side. The symbol has been on my S4 since I got it in July.

Neither one is the "Active" GPS symbol where the phone is actively connecting to the GPS satellites.

Dave-in-Decatur

Well, since the update turning GPS on or off doesn't add or subtract any icon on my status bar. As you say, turning off "Access to my location" changes the icon from the one with the "radiation" on the right to the plain one. But I thought that before the update, as Klue says, that symbol with the "radiation" was the one to indicate an active GPS connection (not just the emergency one), just as in the online S4 FAQ from Samsung.

OK, I just finally figured it out. If I have no location services on and "Access to my location" turned off also, the GPS icon is the "plain" one, which indicates that E911 GPS is active and nothing else. If I turn on "Access to my location," then all 3 location services turn on (VZW, GPS, and Google AKA "Wi-Fi & mobile network location"), and the icon changes to the "radiating" one. It stays that way until I turn off all 3 location services.Simply toggling GPS off and on using the button on the notification screen pull-down doesn't change the icon back to the simple one unless standalone GPS is the only location service running.

I think what confused me is that I recently decided to turn on Google Now as an experiment, and in conjunction with that turned on Google location services. That meant that toggling GPS didn't change the icon (as it did when GPS was the only location service I was using), and that's what confused me. Not that confusing me is that hard to do these days. So it was starting to use Google Now, not the update, that caused the change in icon behavior.

Sorry for spreading my confusion to others! In my defense, though, the documentation on these icons is weak to nonexistent.

Ann154

Here is the actively seeking GPS information icon. As you would notice it is in a different location in the notification bar. Also this image is from July. The phone is using battery for the GPS when it is active like this. The other two are more like standby modes then actively reporting your location.

Dave-in-Decatur

Hmm, that's right of course. So the icons I was wondering about seem to be about location services, not GPS as such. OK, I think I've got it now. Thanks! Hitting the road with S4 in hand....

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