Location Services Double Fail

A couple weeks ago, the clutch on my car died, and I was stranded on the road. Fortunately, I have free roadside assistance as part of my car insurance policy and called the toll-free number to schedule a tow. There was an option to speak to an agent and another option to pinpoint my location if I had a mobile phone. I opted for the latter, hoping to use modern technology to expedite my request. I was sent a text message with a link to begin my request:

So far so good. Upon clicking the link, I was taken to page on my web browser where it asked me to enter my vehicle location:

It stated that location services were required in order to use the map. Although I confirmed that I had enabled Location Services on my iPhone in Settings > Privacy > Location Services, I hadn't additionally enabled location services for my web browser (Safari). Not having realized that at the time, I decided to try entering my location in the search bar instead. I was at the corner of Sepulveda Blvd and National Blvd, so tried entering that intersection to no avail. It required an actual street address, not an intersection.

Feeling like this was taking too long, I abandoned the high-tech option and tapped a phone icon on the webpage which connected me to a live agent at All City Tow Service. I verified my insurance plan and told her my location (intersection of Sepulveda Blvd and National Blvd), and she said a tow truck should arrive in 45 minutes. Hooray for humans—a triumph over technology! Humans 1, Technology 0. I also received a text message confirmation from All City Tow Service.

I noticed the discrepancy between what the All City Tow Service agent told me (45 minutes) vs. the text message confirmation (90 minutes). Otherwise, all the other information looked correct. As I waited for the tow truck, I made work-related phone calls. About 90 minutes later, the tow truck still had not arrived. I clicked on the text message link to the website again, and given that my location was manually entered by the live agent, I was taken directly to a map:

I noticed immediately that the pin was placed on the wrong intersection (again, my car was at the corner of Sepulveda Blvd and National Blvd, but the pin was on the other side of the freeway). Fearing that the tow truck driver would not find me, I called All City Tow Service to have them update my location. It turns out that the tow truck driver went to the pinned location, did not see me, and left. So they dispatched a 2nd tow truck driver, and I provided a physical street address on Sepulveda Blvd that they could correctly enter for my location. I was given a wait time of 30 minutes. That was a little frustrating, but 30 minutes didn't seem that bad. Plus, a parking enforcement officer had come moments earlier and set up cones in the road to help divert traffic around my car which was blocking the middle lane of a 3-lane street, so I was not concerned about traffic safety.

About 45 minutes later, there was no tow truck in sight. I called All City Tow Service again to confirm that they had the correct address, and they confirmed the street address. However, something seemed to have gone awry with the 2nd tow truck driver (they did not answer my question about what exactly happened), so they dispatched a 3rd driver, and I was given a wait time of 45 minutes.

It was lunchtime anyway, so I grabbed a burger and continued waiting curbside. Another independent tow truck driver pulled up and offered to tow my car for $60. I was slightly tempted to take the offer but declined. Fortunately, the 3rd tow truck arrived almost exactly 45 minutes later, and I had my car towed to the mechanic.

My total wait time was 3 hours. Humans 0, Technology 0.

False Alarm - Poor Location Tracking

One of the benefits of having Apple accounts (via Apple ID) linked to all of our Apple devices (our family has 2 iMacs, a MacBook Pro, an Apple TV, 2 iPads, and 2 iPhones) is that we can be notified when and where someone is using our Apple ID. Well, hopefully that someone will the the rightful owner of the account, but if not, then you are given the option to disallow the login, change your password, and even force a signout from all linked devices.

Earlier tonight, I was using my Apple TV. Shortly thereafter, I saw the following prompt on my iMac:

I live in Los Angeles, and Tustin is approximately 50 miles from where I live. What would you have done? I thought that since I had just recently used my Apple TV, it could have been me (although I was not prompted to sign in to my Apple TV). However, it felt to me that location tracking via wifi should be accurate enough to at least pinpoint location to the correct city, and 50 miles seemed like too much of a margin of error to grant to location tracking. So to err on the side of caution, I clicked the "Don't Allow" button, changed my password, and forced all devices to sign out of my Apple ID.

When using my iPhone, I was asked to re-enter my Apple ID password since I had unceremoniously booted myself out moments before. Upon signing in, I received the same message on my iMac that my Apple ID was being used to sign in to a device near Tustin (I was still at home in Los Angeles). So on the bright side, I am pretty sure that my Apple ID had not been compromised. But on the other hand, come on Apple (I know you read my blog but won't admit it), you can do better with your location tracking–can you at least locate the device to the correct city? That would be nice, thank you.