 <p>Location Manager is not reliable on some phones. You may notice that if you launch google maps all of a sudden your app works. That is because Google Maps kicked the LocationManager. Which also means that there is programmatic way to kick that dude alive. So I used </p> <pre><code>HomeScreen.getLocationManager().requestLocationUpdates( LocationManager.NETWORK_PROVIDER, 0, 0, new LocationListener() { @Override public void onStatusChanged(String provider, int status, Bundle extras) { } @Override public void onProviderEnabled(String provider) { } @Override public void onProviderDisabled(String provider) { } @Override public void onLocationChanged(final Location location) { } }); </code></pre> <p>After the above code, I called what ever I needed from LocationManager and it kinda worked. If not try out the new API's <code>LocationClient</code>. This is suppose to be much better, battery, accuracy and reliability.</p>