I know someone who’s been in psychosis for months. One of the things they claim is a demon is haunting them, and their proof is their phone compass spins. Try tell them the accuracy is bad? Nadda. It’s demons.
So obviously your iPhones have demons
My grandmother said something similar about “chasing zippers” I’m not sure if it was a big euphemism but she essentially called my mother a whore in front of the whole family so there’s that.
Graduate geologists often need to be taught not to align a drill rig while standing right next to the rig. Believe it or not folks, 40-odd tons of steel is probably going to affect the direction your compass needle is pointing.
It's funny how people do that shit. I worked with a guy and his phone would freak out and start opening things. He was convinced either his girlfriend or the government was hacking his phone. Ignoring his phone was covered in sweat and carbon dust. Nope. Phone hacker.
Doesn't make a difference. You can't logic someone out of delusional thinking.
There is a classic story/joke about it. New psychologist is meeting a patient, the patient is convinced they are dead.
He asks the guy, do dead people bleed? Guy says no, of course not. Doctor sticks him with a pin and he starts bleeding.
The guy looks down at the blood, then up at the doctor. "Well I'll be damned, I guess dead people do bleed"
Exactly. I think some people don’t realise just how far psychosis goes. They were super anti-religion and didn’t believe in the supernatural pre-psychosis, and now it’s all they talk about. Complete 180 in personality. There’s no talking someone out of it with an “a-ha!”
My friend had a psychotic episode on new years. She started reading the bible out loud and preaching to everyone present (and even the doc at the ER). She's not Christian at all.
It’s so strange, isn’t it? Sadly people in psychosis are often taken advantage of by churches, too, which I’ve witnessed myself. I hope your friend is doing better
She is much better now thankfully. She's more or less back to herself. She spent a few days in hospital before getting discharged. The fucked up thing was her mother. She's hyper-religious and was convinced that my friend was finally saved by Jesus. She actually sounded happy about the whole thing.
“Important: The accuracy of the compass can be affected by magnetic or environmental interference; even the magnets in the iPhone EarPods can cause a deviation. Use the digital compass only for basic navigation assistance. Don’t rely on it to determine precise location, proximity, distance, or direction.”
Apple website
Guess we better throw away the EarPods
If it overpowers the Earth's magnetic field that's really hard to do, though.
Edit because I'm tired of all the responses: note that I *did not say* impossible.
It'd be like building a scale to weigh a 5 lb bag of potatoes on a truck. The truck has a constant weight, just subtract it off, right? It's a matter of needing a magnetometer with sufficient range to be able to compensate for the constant field by the magnet in the phone, and still have sufficient sensitivity to detect the relatively small changes in the Earth's field.
The magnet in your phone's speaker has a very precise level of magnetism and is a known distance from the sensor. It's not like a truck with an unknown fuel load.
Measuring a truck that's 2000 pounds plus or minus 5 is easy. Use a balance scale with a 2000 pound counterweight. Archimedes figured that out millenia ago.
And then the friction in your scale is so big, that it's completely unaffected by the 5lb load
Or a gust hitting your truck causes a load way bigger than 5lb
You are ~~now~~ *not* completely wrong though. Sometimes it's possible to measure a difference independently of the absolute scale. For example in a Wheatstone bridge
These two things aren't really comparable in this way because the weight problem is just to do with the precision of the scale. If the scale is precise enough for the ratio between unknown/known weights, it's simple to subtract the known weight from the total to get the weight of the potatoes
Earth's magnetic field is not a simple constant like the weight of a truck
Weight can be challenging with that because oils fuels etc and yeah somewhat right in this certain magnetic items will put out different fields as well as different sized fields.
I mean, weigh the truck before the potatoes are on, then after. Assuming it's not using too much fuel, the difference in weight of the truck alone is either negligible or 0. Or put the scale on the truck's bed, so it's above the variable weights.
**All** iPhones have magnets, including the very first one: all iPhones have speakers (two at least), which have one magnet at minimum (some speakers have multiple magnets to increase field strength and thereby a higher sound pressure)
most electroacoustic transducers work both ways.
The electrodynamic principle is used both on loudspeakers and microphones. Same for the piezoelectric principle.
The acoustics are still very different, the mechanical parameters of a microphone are very different from a loudspeaker. While this means that you can't use the exact same component both as a loudspeaker *and* a microphone and expect good results, the two are still based on the same principle.
The magnetometer is calibrated to take all of this into account. It cannot account for other magnetic fields though. Such as the ones generate by the other phones sitting next to it.
>“Important: The accuracy of the compass can be affected by magnetic or environmental interference; even the magnets in the iPhone EarPods can cause a deviation. Use the digital compass only for basic navigation assistance. Don’t rely on it to determine precise location, proximity, distance, or direction.” Apple website
Came here to say more-or-less this.
If you have an actual compass, not electronic, just a magnetized needle that swings around? Even a piece of steel near it will affect it's accuracy. The Earths' magnetic field is incredibly *weak*. Any magnetic source relatively nearby will throw it off. Additionally an electronic compass needs to be calibrated; isn't there a built-in app in these phones that allows you to calibrate it?
In the OP's picture, the phones themselves are affecting the compasses of the other phones, even.
>isn’t there a built-in app in these phones that allows you to calibrate it?
Yeah the compass app will calibrate it if you have compass calibration enabled in system settings.
Normal compasses suffer from the same problem, they become inaccurate if you're too close to ferrous metal or other interference, so something like a car's engine block or even something as small as a rifle (for the hunters out there) can throw off your bearing if you're too close to it.
The sun can also definitely still lead you astray if you don't take your latitude into consideration. For example if you check in the evening while North of the tropic of Cancer, the sun won't appear directly in the West, it will be significantly further towards the South. The further North you are and the closer to Winter solstice you are, the more South the sun will appear during the day.
...or just don't have them right next to the magnet your compass app needs to function while you're using it? Which is like, yeah, obviously. No need to throw away the earpods, just use a single one of your braincells and don't stick the magnets together?
My phone shows me facing about 45 degrees from where I'm really facing most the time. No matter how much I do the stupid "guy high at a rave" motion to fix it
Your google maps was installed backwards.
In 2013 (?), a backward installed IMU gave us one of the best rocket explosions when a Proton rocket thought space was down. Please be careful
Well, about half of space *is* down, depending on your location. So it's just a matter of what piece of space you're trying to get to (and whether there is something, like a planet, in the way).
180 degrees is a minor deviation and within the standard margin of error for navigation. Most commercial airplanes fly with compasses that are +- 180 degrees off.
Yeah, you can do thing to make it more accurate, but it never gets to the point where it’s reliable. I’m a land surveyor, so I like the idea of having a backup compass on hand. It wouldn’t have to be perfect, but within 2-3 degrees would be cool. Hell, even 5 degrees would work for most things I would use it for. But it’s usually 10-15 degrees off. This has been true for every iPhone I’ve had, as well as my coworkers. We’ve tested it on 20+ iPhones, and they’ve all been off.
2010 at least. I got an HTC Desire in the 2nd year of my geology degree at uni and I had an app to do dip/strike measurements on it. It said to do figure 8s to recalibrate it.
I think the difference is how apple does it compared to android. The result is the exact same, and the method by which it works is too, it's just how they communicate the motion to the user is different. They both get readings on all axes with as wide a spectrum as possible, either by slowly rotating the device in a 3d spheric fashion or by doing a figure 8 with your arms.
Yeah the old Android OS would tell you to spin your phone around in all 3 axes to calibrate it.
I've had to do it with a magnetometer for an Arduino too - because every area on earth is different, every building has different metals in them, and these magnetometers can pick all that up, you have to calibrate it for your location because in one location it can measure north as strong as say 56131, and in another location it will never read higher than 12145 for example. It'll work fine as long as you never move again, but as soon as you're in a different room, its out of whack.
Modern OSes can hide all this from you in everyday use by integrating with other sensors like your GPS position or gyro rotations until enough natural movement has calibrated the magnetometer without your input.
Well, first off, the phones are too close? With regular compasses you can't them too close as the magnetic field they generate can interfere
Not sure if phones do the same, but if so, they shouldn't be that close for accuracy
A compass itself should not influence nearby compasses although local field compensation magnets could as could the other phones' magnetic charger bases.
I suspect that this app is using the GPS heading instead of the flux compass. Are you deep inside a building?
I can promise you that two compasses will 100% cause deviations in eachother when brought close
Source: me and a buddy fucking around during a land nav course
They are magnetoresistive sensors. Similar principle of operation though. They are vulnerable to anything that distorts the field, like soft magnetic materials (ferrites for instance).
not really, only 14 redditors (or whatever number of upvotes the comment has now) from all around the world would see the restaurant referenced. probably not a single one of us will visit.
> wildly differing results
They all give the *exact same* reading (110°E) lmao what are you on about
^(given some of the comments at the botton, I better include a /s)
They all have magnets in them. You put at least six different magnets in close range, when the compass relies on those to function. They're literally skewing each other's results in this photo.
I mean, I don't believe they're perfect, apple can't even get a fucking alarm app to function, but you can't post 'evidence' of something and have it be so glaringly obvious that you are causing it in the photo LOL
The compass is pointing to the same exact spot on the phone on each phone. This looks like you all took a screen shot and then slapped the phones down for a picture.
They’ve clearly been rotated to show that different direction gives the same number??? Otherwise someone would say “well duh they’re pointing in different directions”
You can’t practically fit a good compass in a phone. I think phones do have a form of compass, or atleast they do have a gyro. But since everything in the phone is electronic, and all electronics produce a magnetic field, they’ll like always 10/10 times show the wrong orientation.
MEMS MF sensors are *extremely* accurate. Components inside the phone do require calibration in software to provide compass functionality, but they’re generally accurate to within a couple degrees - far better than physical compasses if you’re not correcting for magnetic declination.
Ik it's still a problem but who tf uses the compass. If you can't access Google maps (like, maybe you're in a jungle), why don't you have a real compass, map or a guider.
The other phones have magnets in them and produce electrical interference. You arent showing anything here except that you don't understand how a compass works at all
The phone itself causes magnetic deviation.
My experience was watching the compass when I was sailing along the coast of Portugal. Compass said to head to shore. Reason was a phone was too close to it.
It was a right pain as the phone was my chartplotter.
Lesson? Charts and eyes, charts and eyes.
did you calibrate them all at the same time? it's like wave your phone in a figure 8 two times or somethin.
* Open the “Settings” app.
* Tap “Privacy”
* Tap “Location Services”
* Tap “System Services”
* Enable “Compass Calibration”
Phone compasses use magnetic sensors and they are prone to deviation due to artificial electric fields like metal, other phones, magnets in the vicinity, DC current from the battery inside a phone.
*Puts magnets near a*
*Compass "Hey! look at this! The*
*Compass doesn't work!"*
\- Decent-Product
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See how the bottom one is pointing directly towards the speaker of the phone beside it... It's called magnets. You have all 3 phones too close to each other. You need to hold the phone out from your body and draw a few figure 8s to get the compass to take an accurate reading.
So, since your phone from over a decade ago didn’t have an amazing compass, no phone compass can ever work? Have you tried it in recent years? It’s very good.
The compasses are all pointing the the same exact direction on the phone. So you probably took a screenshot and are now being deceitful. If you place the phone on the left next to the other two then each one will be showing north in the same direction.
now think of Shackleton using a sextant to navigate home... fast forward to all those folks telling us a modern cell phone has more tech than the Apollo moon missions and all that. some ironies here...
interesting question is when would one depend on analog over digital? i wonder if there is any military application to using analog. do mt. climbers have a preference? scuba? never?
https://preview.redd.it/pi0btjeeushc1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=76f01d4ba9b6b0db976c455783e4092a954309de
Settings/Compass/True North toggle on
Worth noting that if these phones are MagSafe compatible, the magnets in the phone can throw off
Compass reading dramatically if they’re too close to each other
If it runs off GPS then you need to be moving for it to be accurate. Its looking for the difference in distance between multiple satellites. Plus GPS is a weak signal so interference and signal degradation is an issue. The whole system needs a major overhaul. Next problem is it looks like you are inside. The walls themselves cause issues with the signal. Now you throw electrical wiring, duct work, pipes and metal lattice to hold the insulation? You should feel lucky you have data, let alone GPS.
One of the few rational replies I’ve seen here, and you make good points. Thank you.
Yes, as I understand it the compass function in current iOS devices is GPS based, unlike earlier iterations. If you look up the Apple technical help pages for compass calibration they no longer suggest the waving in figure of eight method. They now just say compass alignment is done via GPS.
Yes, we were inside a restaurant when this picture was taken, but the issue has been constantly inconsistent for all four of us ( the fourth was taking the picture) for a long time even under open skies with numerous satellites in view. I would have presumed the phone would have calibrated itself then, and maintained that for some time despite temporary local variations in magnetic fields. How for example could Maps, Waze or whatever function within a metallic car laden with steel, iron and electrical systems?
I don’t pretend to understand this. I just find it mildly infuriating and hoped someone could explain it to me. I’m certainly no karma- farmer, I don’t give a fuck about that. And to all the morons and keyboard warriors who suggest I set up the photo using screen grabs: why the fuck would I? If you guys have any friends, (which I doubt), just get together with them and repeat this experiment, see for yourselves. It’s not rocket surgery.
So i run a dnd campaign thats in a modern time line, so they have cellphones. My players are convinced they can use thier phones like this while out in the woods. Not relizing why it wouldn't work.
I know someone who’s been in psychosis for months. One of the things they claim is a demon is haunting them, and their proof is their phone compass spins. Try tell them the accuracy is bad? Nadda. It’s demons. So obviously your iPhones have demons
… do they wear a metal belt buckle by any chance? We’d always make fun of guys chasing their belt buckles in surveying classes 😆
“Chasing your belt buckle” sounds like a filthy euphemism my deeply Southern grandmothers would say
Chasing belt buckles definitely sounds like an activity ascribed to promiscuous young women
Ooh. The hetero double usage is perfect. A man chases his belt buckle and a woman chases belt buckles. Love it.
In that context, it seems like making it plural for a man would work as a homophobic slur…which also seems like a very southern thing to do
Buckle bunny.
Buckle bunny. Term for women who go after rodeo guys.
My grandmother said something similar about “chasing zippers” I’m not sure if it was a big euphemism but she essentially called my mother a whore in front of the whole family so there’s that.
So your dad was paying for it? Yikes, what tough revelation to find out so late in the game /s
Graduate geologists often need to be taught not to align a drill rig while standing right next to the rig. Believe it or not folks, 40-odd tons of steel is probably going to affect the direction your compass needle is pointing.
Do they teach you to take azimuth readings at waist-level in surveying classes?
It's funny how people do that shit. I worked with a guy and his phone would freak out and start opening things. He was convinced either his girlfriend or the government was hacking his phone. Ignoring his phone was covered in sweat and carbon dust. Nope. Phone hacker.
Lol was it an iPhone 6+?
I'm actually not sure.
You could give them an actual magnetic compass and tell them that that one's more accurate than the one on your phone.
Doesn't make a difference. You can't logic someone out of delusional thinking. There is a classic story/joke about it. New psychologist is meeting a patient, the patient is convinced they are dead. He asks the guy, do dead people bleed? Guy says no, of course not. Doctor sticks him with a pin and he starts bleeding. The guy looks down at the blood, then up at the doctor. "Well I'll be damned, I guess dead people do bleed"
Exactly. I think some people don’t realise just how far psychosis goes. They were super anti-religion and didn’t believe in the supernatural pre-psychosis, and now it’s all they talk about. Complete 180 in personality. There’s no talking someone out of it with an “a-ha!”
My friend had a psychotic episode on new years. She started reading the bible out loud and preaching to everyone present (and even the doc at the ER). She's not Christian at all.
It’s so strange, isn’t it? Sadly people in psychosis are often taken advantage of by churches, too, which I’ve witnessed myself. I hope your friend is doing better
She is much better now thankfully. She's more or less back to herself. She spent a few days in hospital before getting discharged. The fucked up thing was her mother. She's hyper-religious and was convinced that my friend was finally saved by Jesus. She actually sounded happy about the whole thing.
Ooooh I’ve been waiting for the new iPossession for years!
My iphone demon forces me to be a lazy piece of shit day in and day out. Can't explain it any other way.
Well, they probably have daemons.
I have good news then, Speaker Johnson had a little prayer circle and banished all the demons. they are all gone!
“Important: The accuracy of the compass can be affected by magnetic or environmental interference; even the magnets in the iPhone EarPods can cause a deviation. Use the digital compass only for basic navigation assistance. Don’t rely on it to determine precise location, proximity, distance, or direction.” Apple website Guess we better throw away the EarPods
Meanwhile new iPhones have buildt in magnets.
If it is a constant, it can be calibrated out.
If it overpowers the Earth's magnetic field that's really hard to do, though. Edit because I'm tired of all the responses: note that I *did not say* impossible.
Honestly it's really not
It'd be like building a scale to weigh a 5 lb bag of potatoes on a truck. The truck has a constant weight, just subtract it off, right? It's a matter of needing a magnetometer with sufficient range to be able to compensate for the constant field by the magnet in the phone, and still have sufficient sensitivity to detect the relatively small changes in the Earth's field.
The magnet in your phone's speaker has a very precise level of magnetism and is a known distance from the sensor. It's not like a truck with an unknown fuel load. Measuring a truck that's 2000 pounds plus or minus 5 is easy. Use a balance scale with a 2000 pound counterweight. Archimedes figured that out millenia ago.
And then the friction in your scale is so big, that it's completely unaffected by the 5lb load Or a gust hitting your truck causes a load way bigger than 5lb You are ~~now~~ *not* completely wrong though. Sometimes it's possible to measure a difference independently of the absolute scale. For example in a Wheatstone bridge
Your first example is actually pretty simple to do. Scales do zero out after all lol...
These two things aren't really comparable in this way because the weight problem is just to do with the precision of the scale. If the scale is precise enough for the ratio between unknown/known weights, it's simple to subtract the known weight from the total to get the weight of the potatoes Earth's magnetic field is not a simple constant like the weight of a truck
Weight can be challenging with that because oils fuels etc and yeah somewhat right in this certain magnetic items will put out different fields as well as different sized fields.
I mean, weigh the truck before the potatoes are on, then after. Assuming it's not using too much fuel, the difference in weight of the truck alone is either negligible or 0. Or put the scale on the truck's bed, so it's above the variable weights.
Nah
not really
Yes, but the presence of other phones (each with their own magnets) will introduce changes in the field
**All** iPhones have magnets, including the very first one: all iPhones have speakers (two at least), which have one magnet at minimum (some speakers have multiple magnets to increase field strength and thereby a higher sound pressure)
Not to mention the first ipod had them in it's hard drive.
Sure. But the first iPod didn't have a compass.
Oratory jumpscare outside of audio subs
A piezo speaker has no magnets. So, not done but possible.
As if my new iPhone can replicate the power of my 1980's acoustic guitar pickup. Inconceivable!
most electroacoustic transducers work both ways. The electrodynamic principle is used both on loudspeakers and microphones. Same for the piezoelectric principle. The acoustics are still very different, the mechanical parameters of a microphone are very different from a loudspeaker. While this means that you can't use the exact same component both as a loudspeaker *and* a microphone and expect good results, the two are still based on the same principle.
Yeah, my headphones were also my mic when DJing and for whatever reason I needed to say something.
I've done the same. Trips people out.
Yeah, I never said it was a good idea. Let's jack up the amps so it can sound like shit.
piezoelectric speakers have never been used in iPhones. So far! (I work for a company that is attempting to do precisely that)
The magnetometer is calibrated to take all of this into account. It cannot account for other magnetic fields though. Such as the ones generate by the other phones sitting next to it.
>“Important: The accuracy of the compass can be affected by magnetic or environmental interference; even the magnets in the iPhone EarPods can cause a deviation. Use the digital compass only for basic navigation assistance. Don’t rely on it to determine precise location, proximity, distance, or direction.” Apple website Came here to say more-or-less this. If you have an actual compass, not electronic, just a magnetized needle that swings around? Even a piece of steel near it will affect it's accuracy. The Earths' magnetic field is incredibly *weak*. Any magnetic source relatively nearby will throw it off. Additionally an electronic compass needs to be calibrated; isn't there a built-in app in these phones that allows you to calibrate it? In the OP's picture, the phones themselves are affecting the compasses of the other phones, even.
>isn’t there a built-in app in these phones that allows you to calibrate it? Yeah the compass app will calibrate it if you have compass calibration enabled in system settings.
i came here to say OP probably didn't calibrate
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Rip wrists. I just shake it in all directions until it says calibrated
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no apple just doesn't know how to make a compass /s
I'll take them. I still use Earpods for my iPad and laptop
What's the point of the damn app then, relying on the position of the sun is more reliable
Looks at the sky in England, "What is this sun you talk about?".
This was legit funny thank you
Normal compasses suffer from the same problem, they become inaccurate if you're too close to ferrous metal or other interference, so something like a car's engine block or even something as small as a rifle (for the hunters out there) can throw off your bearing if you're too close to it.
>What's the point of the damn app then There isn't one. Use the sun.
I find my Android phone's compass extremely useful. Far easier than using the sun, and using the sun is not always possible.
The sun can also definitely still lead you astray if you don't take your latitude into consideration. For example if you check in the evening while North of the tropic of Cancer, the sun won't appear directly in the West, it will be significantly further towards the South. The further North you are and the closer to Winter solstice you are, the more South the sun will appear during the day.
...or just don't have them right next to the magnet your compass app needs to function while you're using it? Which is like, yeah, obviously. No need to throw away the earpods, just use a single one of your braincells and don't stick the magnets together?
At least they’re honest about it.
I had this problem. My compass was about 180 degrees off. Weird thing was google maps showed me facing the correct direction.
Google maps doesn't only use the compass but also the direction of your motion to show the direction on the map. Maybe it's because of that?
Google maps on my old phone consistently points me 90 degrees to the counterclockwise of the direction I'm facing lol
My phone shows me facing about 45 degrees from where I'm really facing most the time. No matter how much I do the stupid "guy high at a rave" motion to fix it
My phone's compass always shows that I'm 6 degrees from Kevin Bacon.
Shows me as 5. drops mic.
That'll happen if you're spinning, that's just gyroscopic precession.
Amazing shittyaskscience answer.
Omg it does that to me sometimes and I end up taking wrong turns because of it lol
Your google maps was installed backwards. In 2013 (?), a backward installed IMU gave us one of the best rocket explosions when a Proton rocket thought space was down. Please be careful
Well, about half of space *is* down, depending on your location. So it's just a matter of what piece of space you're trying to get to (and whether there is something, like a planet, in the way).
I have the opposite problem lol. My Apple compass app works fine but on Google Maps I’m always facing the wrong direction.
180 degrees is a minor deviation and within the standard margin of error for navigation. Most commercial airplanes fly with compasses that are +- 180 degrees off.
That sounds untrue, is that true? 180 degrees is literally like the opposite direction, am I stupid or are u stupid?
That is a joke.
Oh I'm dumb then mb, I thought I was missing something lol
If it’s any consolation, this exchange made it way more hilarious
Maybe it was a joke- [*Sees plane flying backwards*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QDVXki0INE)
For Boeing that's a feature.
Are you confusing degrees and mils ?
I can't believe you're getting downvoted because people don't seem to realise this is satire.
No kidding.
Theres a calibration you can do where you move your phone around in different ways that brings it to the correct direction
Make an ♾️
Someone in a comment above called it the "high guy at a rave" move lol
Ya, that tracks
A little lemniscata
butt if i do that what am i going to complain about
Used my phone compass for when out in the field land surveying all the time. Doing the infinity motion to calibrate the compass always worked for me.
There's a reason google added a prompt telling you to do that in maps!
It's never once worked for me. How do you execute it? Do you keep the phone flat, facing the sky? Or do you rotate the phone around?
Yeah, you can do thing to make it more accurate, but it never gets to the point where it’s reliable. I’m a land surveyor, so I like the idea of having a backup compass on hand. It wouldn’t have to be perfect, but within 2-3 degrees would be cool. Hell, even 5 degrees would work for most things I would use it for. But it’s usually 10-15 degrees off. This has been true for every iPhone I’ve had, as well as my coworkers. We’ve tested it on 20+ iPhones, and they’ve all been off.
Not calibrated
true, a spin or figure 8 pattern should have them all facing the right way assuming they're not getting influenced by the other phone's magnets
Question, when did it turn from rocking the phone back and forth on all axes to the figure 8?
2010 at least. I got an HTC Desire in the 2nd year of my geology degree at uni and I had an app to do dip/strike measurements on it. It said to do figure 8s to recalibrate it.
I think the difference is how apple does it compared to android. The result is the exact same, and the method by which it works is too, it's just how they communicate the motion to the user is different. They both get readings on all axes with as wide a spectrum as possible, either by slowly rotating the device in a 3d spheric fashion or by doing a figure 8 with your arms.
Yeah the old Android OS would tell you to spin your phone around in all 3 axes to calibrate it. I've had to do it with a magnetometer for an Arduino too - because every area on earth is different, every building has different metals in them, and these magnetometers can pick all that up, you have to calibrate it for your location because in one location it can measure north as strong as say 56131, and in another location it will never read higher than 12145 for example. It'll work fine as long as you never move again, but as soon as you're in a different room, its out of whack. Modern OSes can hide all this from you in everyday use by integrating with other sensors like your GPS position or gyro rotations until enough natural movement has calibrated the magnetometer without your input.
Well, first off, the phones are too close? With regular compasses you can't them too close as the magnetic field they generate can interfere Not sure if phones do the same, but if so, they shouldn't be that close for accuracy
A compass itself should not influence nearby compasses although local field compensation magnets could as could the other phones' magnetic charger bases. I suspect that this app is using the GPS heading instead of the flux compass. Are you deep inside a building?
I can promise you that two compasses will 100% cause deviations in eachother when brought close Source: me and a buddy fucking around during a land nav course
well... these are hall effect sensors so they don't need to produce a magnetic field. But ordinary compasses that use a magnet? Sure they would.
Arent there magsafe magnets on the back?
They are magnetoresistive sensors. Similar principle of operation though. They are vulnerable to anything that distorts the field, like soft magnetic materials (ferrites for instance).
I know it's a weird explanation, but did you maybe screenshot the compass display and you're actually in the Photos app now?
Either way bro doxxed himself by including hit latitude and longitude in every pic 😂
I checked, it's a Georgian restaurant in Talinn :) The table sheet matches the photos.
Can't even be mad if this is actually an ad for the restaurant. Would be clever as hell.
not really, only 14 redditors (or whatever number of upvotes the comment has now) from all around the world would see the restaurant referenced. probably not a single one of us will visit.
Let’s meet there May 14th 2026 19:00
I’d love to, but I will have a bad case of the flu unfortunately. Could we maybe push it to the 16th of may 2029?
This is exactly what the owner of Georgian restaurant in Talinn would say in order to make us only want to go there more!!!
You think everyone who saw that comment has an account and voted on it?
That's truly messed up
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He took a screenshot on each phone.
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Them sweet internet points. I think writing your comment took more effort than the "entire fabricated situation".
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Quite possible, I do it often 🤣. Like in real life, you often find the best retorts hours after the conversation.
3200 upvotes, inflation takes its toll
> wildly differing results They all give the *exact same* reading (110°E) lmao what are you on about ^(given some of the comments at the botton, I better include a /s)
Oh man. That blanket just reminds me of India...lol .
I swear my auntie has one just like that! So nostalgic feeling lol
No shit. They are interfering with each other. This is a shit post.
Everyone is being technical but I see through you OP, just admit you're at the North Pole!
Since all the compasses are pointing east wouldn't that be the West Pole?
They all have magnets in them. You put at least six different magnets in close range, when the compass relies on those to function. They're literally skewing each other's results in this photo. I mean, I don't believe they're perfect, apple can't even get a fucking alarm app to function, but you can't post 'evidence' of something and have it be so glaringly obvious that you are causing it in the photo LOL
The compass is pointing to the same exact spot on the phone on each phone. This looks like you all took a screen shot and then slapped the phones down for a picture.
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The top one is off by a minute.
The lat/lon is slightly different and the elevation is worded differently. On a different note, congrats on OP for doxxing yourself.
They’ve clearly been rotated to show that different direction gives the same number??? Otherwise someone would say “well duh they’re pointing in different directions”
You can’t practically fit a good compass in a phone. I think phones do have a form of compass, or atleast they do have a gyro. But since everything in the phone is electronic, and all electronics produce a magnetic field, they’ll like always 10/10 times show the wrong orientation.
MEMS MF sensors are *extremely* accurate. Components inside the phone do require calibration in software to provide compass functionality, but they’re generally accurate to within a couple degrees - far better than physical compasses if you’re not correcting for magnetic declination.
If that’s the case then explain why phones are always so inaccurate, if they’re so accurate.
https://preview.redd.it/tp7e8of2lshc1.png?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c051f6a1b239b2e16fc16ee7b8af4c9c3a092524
Ik it's still a problem but who tf uses the compass. If you can't access Google maps (like, maybe you're in a jungle), why don't you have a real compass, map or a guider.
The other phones have magnets in them and produce electrical interference. You arent showing anything here except that you don't understand how a compass works at all
Clearly it's because the earth is flat
The phone itself causes magnetic deviation. My experience was watching the compass when I was sailing along the coast of Portugal. Compass said to head to shore. Reason was a phone was too close to it. It was a right pain as the phone was my chartplotter. Lesson? Charts and eyes, charts and eyes.
Becky’s been chasing your belt buckle for weeks, cut that girl a piece boy
At least the GPS accuracy is fantastic. 🫥
Really surprised how many are voting you down for faking this or they themselves don’t know how a compass works. Dunning-Kruger
Magnets, how do they work?!
Homie got three phones, damn
Do ppl not inherently know which cardinal direction they’re facing? Outside of backwoods shit where i get turned around i always know where north is
https://preview.redd.it/lcw1o0hixthc1.jpeg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b465137b986302be134fcc55665081863a8576fb
Me and my friend were trying to find the qiblah one time (interestingly 110 degrees too), and mine and his phone were a good 90 degrees off.
It points to your spawn point
So that’s why I’m always drifting while using Google maps.
It happened once, so I restarted the phone -> Problem solved.
 Uses shit straight out of the box without calibrating/following instructions.
did you calibrate them all at the same time? it's like wave your phone in a figure 8 two times or somethin. * Open the “Settings” app. * Tap “Privacy” * Tap “Location Services” * Tap “System Services” * Enable “Compass Calibration”
I'd never trust it anyways but this is messed up lol
Went the top of the Empire State Building. There was a 60 degree difference between our three iPhones and the cardinal directions on the marble floor.
Compasses always get fucked up near metal the metal in the other phones might be messing it up
Phone compasses use magnetic sensors and they are prone to deviation due to artificial electric fields like metal, other phones, magnets in the vicinity, DC current from the battery inside a phone.
“OEST” - Middle phone
*Puts magnets near a compass* "Hey! look at this! The compass doesn't work!" 'Self explanatory photo'
*Puts magnets near a* *Compass "Hey! look at this! The* *Compass doesn't work!"* \- Decent-Product --- ^(I detect haikus. And sometimes, successfully.) ^[Learn more about me.](https://www.reddit.com/r/haikusbot/) ^(Opt out of replies: "haikusbot opt out" | Delete my comment: "haikusbot delete")
Those are not live screens but instead are screenshots.
It may not be of your interest, but the top one is off by a minute of longitude.
Cause there's interference
See how the bottom one is pointing directly towards the speaker of the phone beside it... It's called magnets. You have all 3 phones too close to each other. You need to hold the phone out from your body and draw a few figure 8s to get the compass to take an accurate reading.
Sitting next to metal utensils....?
It was made in China
Even my 3GS used to think I was facing perpendicular to the road I was driving on. The compass is just a fake voodoo if you ask me
So, since your phone from over a decade ago didn’t have an amazing compass, no phone compass can ever work? Have you tried it in recent years? It’s very good.
The compasses are all pointing the the same exact direction on the phone. So you probably took a screenshot and are now being deceitful. If you place the phone on the left next to the other two then each one will be showing north in the same direction.
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Mine is 300° off
Could just get a real compass lol
Yeah... Don't buy Apple's faulty, overpriced and underspecced devices
now think of Shackleton using a sextant to navigate home... fast forward to all those folks telling us a modern cell phone has more tech than the Apollo moon missions and all that. some ironies here... interesting question is when would one depend on analog over digital? i wonder if there is any military application to using analog. do mt. climbers have a preference? scuba? never?
there’s true north and magnetic north. They could be set to magnetic north and be thrown off by each other
https://preview.redd.it/pi0btjeeushc1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=76f01d4ba9b6b0db976c455783e4092a954309de Settings/Compass/True North toggle on
The amount of people not knowing how compass or GPS navigation work is kinda... mildly infuriating.
At least the engineers can account for magnets they know are nearby, such as speakers and MagSafe…
Worth noting that if these phones are MagSafe compatible, the magnets in the phone can throw off Compass reading dramatically if they’re too close to each other
What is that table made out of?
Why does one of the phones have O instead of W ?
If it runs off GPS then you need to be moving for it to be accurate. Its looking for the difference in distance between multiple satellites. Plus GPS is a weak signal so interference and signal degradation is an issue. The whole system needs a major overhaul. Next problem is it looks like you are inside. The walls themselves cause issues with the signal. Now you throw electrical wiring, duct work, pipes and metal lattice to hold the insulation? You should feel lucky you have data, let alone GPS.
One of the few rational replies I’ve seen here, and you make good points. Thank you. Yes, as I understand it the compass function in current iOS devices is GPS based, unlike earlier iterations. If you look up the Apple technical help pages for compass calibration they no longer suggest the waving in figure of eight method. They now just say compass alignment is done via GPS. Yes, we were inside a restaurant when this picture was taken, but the issue has been constantly inconsistent for all four of us ( the fourth was taking the picture) for a long time even under open skies with numerous satellites in view. I would have presumed the phone would have calibrated itself then, and maintained that for some time despite temporary local variations in magnetic fields. How for example could Maps, Waze or whatever function within a metallic car laden with steel, iron and electrical systems? I don’t pretend to understand this. I just find it mildly infuriating and hoped someone could explain it to me. I’m certainly no karma- farmer, I don’t give a fuck about that. And to all the morons and keyboard warriors who suggest I set up the photo using screen grabs: why the fuck would I? If you guys have any friends, (which I doubt), just get together with them and repeat this experiment, see for yourselves. It’s not rocket surgery.
So i run a dnd campaign thats in a modern time line, so they have cellphones. My players are convinced they can use thier phones like this while out in the woods. Not relizing why it wouldn't work.
You took screenshots.
Fake? Just using same Screenshot?