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Smartphones
AbacusTech

Apps claiming to use Chinese satellite navigation system Beidou see a surge in downloads, but they might just use GPS

  • Using Beidou requires a smartphone with a compatible chip, not a new app
  • Patriotic netizens are leaving positive reviews on dozens of apps claiming to use Beidou navigation

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A model of China’s Beidou satellite navigation system displayed during the 12th China International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition in 2018 in the southern city of Zhuhai. Photo: AP
Xinmei Shen
China has been working on its GPS competitor since 1994, and this year it finally completed and launched the Beidou Navigation Satellite System. Many iPhone users in the country were apparently so eager to try the new system that they rushed to download various Beidou navigation apps.

But an app alone isn’t enough to connect to the new system. That requires a Beidou-enabled chipset. Without it, many of these patriotic netizens might actually be using US-owned GPS without realising it.

That hasn’t stopped iPhone users from giving these Beidou apps on Apple’s iOS App Store in mainland China near-perfect ratings. Some of the comments are brimming with pride.

“Finally we have our own navigation system. She will surpass any country and organisation and become the No. 1,” one user wrote in a review for one of the Beidou apps. “This is one of the important signs of China Renaissance!”

The App Store has more than a dozen of these apps with generic names like “Beidou navigation” that have been climbing the download charts. Most of them look like standard map apps and claim to use Beidou. But Apple has never confirmed that iPhones support China’s navigation system.

Spec sheets for iPhones show that they have “built-in GPS/GNSS”. GNSS stands for global navigation satellite systems, an umbrella term for all such systems. So far, though, the iPhone is only confirmed to support GPS, Europe’s Galileo system and Russia’s Glonass. We asked Apple last month, before Beidou was put into use, about whether iPhones support the new system, but we didn’t hear back.
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