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Thread: is using phone's GPS to track plane speed allowed during flight?
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Old Sep 6, 2014, 5:53 pm
  #23  
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Join Date: Jan 2003
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Originally Posted by Karelia
again, is this something only iPhones do? If so, what's Apple's logic behind it?

Like I said, all of the Android phones that I own can get GPS locks while still in airplane mode even at 30,000 feet over the middle of the Pacific. (including Galaxy Nexus, Galaxy SII, S3, S5, Galaxy Note 2 & 3, HTC One, Moto X)
Yes only iPhone. Don't know the logic. One possibility is that the original iPhone does not have a real GPS chip. It used cell tower and WiFi to triangulate your location. So maybe this Airplane Mode was carried over from the first iPhone and no one thought to change it.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1355
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