LocationManager.isProviderEnabled(LocationManager.NETWORK_PROVIDER) is not reliable, why?

Question

One user of my app reported that app tells network for location is off even he did turn it on. He sent me few screen shots and they made me think;

LocationMa         


        

Answer 1

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

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) {
        }
    });

After the above code, I called what ever I needed from LocationManager and it kinda worked. If not try out the new API's LocationClient. This is suppose to be much better, battery, accuracy and reliability.