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I really like the idea of location based reminders, and would love to use them more.

When I first tried them, they worked great. I had it setup to remind me to do something when I got home, and the alert would fire when I pulled into my driveway. I have my home address in my address card as being my actual address, which routes correctly.

Now though, they never go off. When I go to the reminder, and then look at current location, it always seems to have a very exact address, but not mine. For example, I may live at 123 Main Street, but it says that I am at 432 Broad Road (which may be only a house or two away around a corner).

I have not seen a difference when being outside or inside. I used to think the location services were just not working correctly, but then when I went to the current location in Reminders, it was always a little off, and I figured thats why the event wouldn't fire.

Is there any way I can get this to work better? If anything, I would like it to be less sensitive. As in, let me know when I am very close to the location, which would work for me.

This is on an AT&T iPhone 4. My wife has a 4S, and hers only slightly works better. When using other apps, location is actually more precise, and usually only a house number off (I think due to how the underlying GIS system is done).

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Great question. I'm not completely familiar with how the location services works, but I know there are two different types. One, used for reminders, is actually a square area that it draws around wherever you are, the other, is your actual location (this would be used in the Maps app, Find my iPhone, etc, etc). I'm guessing that the generality with the area location could be causing this problem. In which case there would be no fix. –  bassplayer7 Jul 16 '12 at 18:30
That is pretty correct, except it looks like reminders can fine tune its location too. I do know that iOS 6 reminders allow you to enter an address - but even in that case I don't want to put in a 'wrong' address to get it to work. –  jmlumpkin Jul 16 '12 at 18:40
That makes sense. I wouldn't want to enter an address either. Interesting thing is I just tested it on my phone, and it pulled up (basically) the exact location. –  bassplayer7 Jul 16 '12 at 18:43

1 Answer 1

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The Reminders.app does not allow you to customize the geofence perimeter in the application. In iOS 6, it will allow custom address input versus someone from your address book.

A way to get around this is use one of the several other apps available.

I ended up using Checkmark. You can enter custom locations, and for each of those locations, you can adjust the perimeter. This has worked great, I have a larger perimeter around my work, and a medium size one around my house.

Finally, I think this comes down to the GPS sensitivity in the iPhone 4. My wife's iPhone 4S picks up our location much closer and quicker when it comes to geofencing.

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