What GPS coordinates actually are

Every point on Earth has a unique address made of two numbers: latitude and longitude. Latitude measures how far north or south you are of the equator, from 0° at the equator up to ±90° at the poles. Longitude measures how far east or west you are of the prime meridian, from 0° up to ±180°. Written together as a decimal pair — like 40.6892, -74.0445 for the Statue of Liberty — they pin down a location to within a few meters. Your iPhone constantly computes these two numbers from satellites, Wi-Fi, and cell signals, then hands them to whichever apps ask. Changing your GPS coordinates simply means feeding apps a different latitude and longitude than the one your hardware measured.

Two ways to set new coordinates

A good GPS location changer gives you two methods, and they suit different needs. Use whichever matches how precise you want to be.

Enter exact latitude and longitude. If you already know the numbers — from a map service, a dataset, or a colleague — type them in directly. The app jumps straight to that point with no guesswork. This is the right choice when you need to be on a specific spot, such as a test fixture, a building entrance, or a coordinate from a bug report.
Drop a pin on the map. When you just want to "be in Tokyo" or "appear downtown," drag the map, zoom to the area, and tap to place a pin. The app reads back the latitude and longitude under that pin, so you get exact coordinates without typing a single digit.

Both methods end the same way: you confirm, and your iPhone begins reporting the coordinates you chose.

How to do it, step by step

The whole flow takes under a minute on a current iPhone:

Install a Fake GPS app from the App Store, such as Location Changer.
Open it and grant the location permission it requests.
Choose your method — type an exact latitude/longitude, or drag the map and drop a pin.
Check the coordinates shown on screen so you land exactly where you intend.
Tap to set, and your device reports the new position to apps that read your GPS.
Stop or reset inside the app to return to your real coordinates.

Precision: getting the digits right

Decimal coordinates carry meaning in every digit after the point, and knowing this saves you from landing a block away. One decimal place is accurate to roughly 11 kilometers — enough to name a city. Three places narrows you to about 110 meters, good for a neighborhood. Five decimal places puts you within about a meter, which is street-address precision and what most people want. So 35.6586, 139.7454 and 35.65860, 139.74540 are the same Tokyo Tower, but truncating to 35.6, 139.7 drops you somewhere else entirely. When you enter coordinates by hand, keep five decimal places. When you drop a pin, the app captures that precision automatically, which is why pin-dropping is often the safer route for non-technical use.

Latitude and longitude sign conventions

One detail trips people up: the sign of each number. Positive latitude is north of the equator; negative is south. Positive longitude is east of the prime meridian; negative is west. So New York sits at a negative longitude (-74), Sydney at a negative latitude (-33), and Buenos Aires has both negative (-34, -58). If your pin lands in the ocean or on the wrong continent, a flipped or missing minus sign is almost always the cause. When you copy coordinates from another source, paste them exactly, signs included, and the app will place you correctly.

When changing your coordinates is useful

People change their iPhone's GPS coordinates for plenty of practical reasons. Developers and QA testers set exact points to verify geofences, delivery radii, and location-aware features without traveling. Travelers preview how regional apps, maps, and content behave in a destination before they arrive. Privacy-minded users avoid broadcasting their precise whereabouts by reporting a steady, deliberate location instead. Researchers and analysts reproduce a specific coordinate from a report to debug it. Because the change applies device-wide, every app that reads your GPS sees the same new latitude and longitude, which keeps your testing or preview consistent across the whole system rather than app by app.

No jailbreak, no computer on iOS 16+

For years, simulating coordinates meant jailbreaking the phone or tethering it to a Mac running developer tools. That era is over. On iOS 16 and newer, a well-built App Store app can change the location your iPhone reports entirely on the device — no cables, no Xcode, no unlocking system files. Your warranty and security stay intact, and the method keeps working through iOS updates. If you want the broader picture beyond coordinates, see our guide to setting a fake GPS location, which covers searching by place name, saving favorite spots, and more.