Adding GPS support to a Wi-Fi only iPad

Solution 1:

Using External GPS / GNSS With iOS

This requires :

  1. The external GPS must be a Made for iPod (MFI) certified External Accessory (EA) that support iOS (has the Apple authentication chip) via a Bluetooth connection to the GPS
  2. Requires that iOS Core Location Services be overridden by one of two methods so that all apps on the iPhone/iPad will use the external GPS.
    • 1) Use of an app such as EOS Tools Pro that receives location information and overrides iOS Core Location Services.
    • 2) The External Accessory (EA) itself somehow overrides iOS Core Location Services. I do not understand how this is done.
      Only devices made by SXblue https://sxbluegps.com/products/gps-gnss-receivers/ can do this MFI magic AFAIK.

I have found only a few GPS manufactures that support iOS:

  • BadElf (lower accuracy but lower cost)
  • EOS https://eos-gnss.com/product/arrow-series/arrow-gold/
  • BlueStar (rebranded EOS devices) http://bluestargps.com/index.html
  • SXblue https://sxbluegps.com/
  • EOS (BluStar is EOS Arrow 200 I think). All these EOS devices support iOS:
  • https://eos-gnss.com/comparison-chart

Sharing Android GPS with an IOS Device

I have no idea if this works.

How To Share GPS From An Android Phone To An iPad [Guide]

Solution 2:

Wi-Fi only iPad doesn't come with built in GPS and other positioning hardware (GLONASS, Galileo, and QZSS) which are available in current models of iPhone and Wi-Fi + Cellular models of iPad.

You can search the Web and find various wired/wireless (Bluetooth) accessories for your iPad that provide positioning functionality using GPS and a companion app.

I’m curious if an Android or iPhone could be used to share its GPS.

Generally speaking, an Android or iPhone can't be used out of the box as a GPS (positioning) accessory for your Wi-Fi only iPad. It is technically possible to create an app which will let you pair your iPad with a mobile device and view the positioning data, but the same can be done on the mobile device itself.