Geolocation & Orientation

Why is geolocation not working ?

In the geolocation menu, touching the Geolocation arrow button will set your location automatically. If not, there can be several reasons for that:
• You have not granted access to your location. This can be modified in your device privacy settings.
• You are in a plane. GPS often does not work in planes, nor Wifi. Therefore the location cannot be determined.

The geolocation only gives me a distance to the nearest largest town.

You need a working internet connection. When geolocating, or when you enter coordinates by hand, Starmap uses iOS map utilities to get a precise location name. This requires internet. Without internet, Starmap uses a local database of the 5000 largest cities in the world, and provides the distance to the closest city.

How to enter coordinates by hand ?

Touch the longitude or the latitude in the menu. This will open new window with the longitude or latitude scrolling wheels.

Can I enter my altitude ?

Not yet. Starmap considers you are a see level. Altitude does not have a large effect of coordinates anyway.

How to have my own location name ?

Touch the location name in the menu. You will get the editor.

How do I store custom locations ?

Starmap keeps a list of the 100th most recent locations in the menu. Just slide the right menu to access them.

The time zone is wrong.

Starmap uses the time zone set in your system when using the geolocation. When you enter coordinates by hand, it uses iOS map utilities, that require internet. Without internet it uses the closest timezone. You can change your time zone manually by touching the time zone in the menu.

The map does not move with the device motion.

Many possible reasons:
• Most obvious: the compass is not activated. Look at the compass icon in the top right corner of the map. This toggles the compass action. When active, the icon has an orange needle.
• Less obvious: your compass calibration is not activated. Check this in you device Settings→Privacy→Location Services→System Services→Compass calibration. This must be on. Turning this off does not save battery (this is a urban legend).

The compass precision is far from the right orientation.

Try the following steps:
• Quit Starmap and remove it from background applications for a fresh start. Restart Starmap.
• Turn your device in landscape/portrait mode.
• Try again away from computer and TV screens, or any magnetic field source. Beware that some protection sleeves might have some magnets for closing.
If the problem remains, contact me throug the support section.

The compass precision is not very precise.

• First, go away from computer and TV screens, or any magnetic field source. Beware that some protection sleeves might have some magnets for closing.
• Toggle the compass icon on the map. This will trigger a compass calibration if needed.
• You might be in magnetic north mode. This happens when your device cannot obtain your location, because Starmap has not been granted access, or simply because you are in a plane. Starmap shows the position of the magnetic north on the map and in the Location & Date menu. If the orientation lag is close to the magnetic declination, then you are in magnetic north mode.

The map jumps or drifts

The compass of your device provides a heading about all seconds. Between two measurements, the gyroscope or the accelerometer take control. But these are only relative values that will drift with time. Your device permanently corrects the drift with new compass measurements. This drift adjustment can make your map jump or drift slowly towards an accurate value.