How can i determine if iphones CoreLocation is using satellites or cell tower triangulation to find the current location?

Question

I'm using CoreLocation to find a users current location and display it on a map. I want to show an icon with an antenna when the location is established using satellites and a icon with towers when it uses tower cell triangulation. In my test app i set the desired accuracy to be kCLLocationAccuracyNearestTenMeters if using tower cell triangulation this may never be reached but when it uses satellites i had promising results.

How can i determine the mode of retrieving the current location, satellites or towers, should i see if the accuracy provided by CoreLocation is less than the desired one then is using satellites and if not is using tower cell triangulation or there is another way?

Answer 1

The framework does not expose the method(s) by which it determined the location.

Answer 2

One way to distinguish GPS updates: the altitude parameter is set.

Answer 3

While the framework does not expose which hardware device is providing location information, it does provide accuracy information with the properties: horizontalAccuracy and verticalAccuracy. You can fake it by looking at how precise those values are.