My iPad was recently lost or stolen. Using my iPhone's app Find My iPhone, I was able to pinpoint its location, so I thought.

It was and still is showing its location at a particular house. With the assistance of the local police and cooperation of the home's owner, the property was searched while I was actively using the "Play Sound" feature for the device. It wasn't located. I keep frequently updating it and it is consistently showing precise location with a green (not grey) dot, which I understand to mean that the device is functioning and online.

My questions are generally how accurate/inaccurate is an iPad's gps/location service? When both iPad and iPhone were in my possession, the maps were very accurate every time I checked them in my house.

Also, can a thief manipulate or change a signal to make it look like my iPad is somewhere it is not?

I would welcome any thoughts, suggestions.

If the green dot is surrounded by a larger light blue circle, that is estimated accuracy/inaccuracy for the location.
Other than that, I have no ideas.

Have a look at this thread. Not that it's much help, but...

Find my iPad

Never did get to the bottom of it.

Sent from my iPhone using iPF

What I've noticed when toying with Find My iPhone with five iDevices (formerly six) in our household:

The location can be off. For example, I'd have all the iDevices on my desk and test the find feature and not once did all our iDevices show up at our exact location. There were always one or two maybe a half-block away.